


A Barely Breathing Story

by jesterlady



Series: Half a Stranger [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 06, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Big Bang Challenge, Canon Het Relationship, Community: het_bigbang, Crossover, F/M, Fantasy, Multi, POV Multiple, Present Tense, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 63,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last year Veronica Mars switched bodies with a vampire Slayer.  This year that same vampire Slayer is back from the dead and could use some help getting adjusted to living again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spike and the New Motorcycle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SusanMarieR](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanMarieR/gifts).



> This is the 3rd part of my Half a Stranger universe. I've tried to make it so you could read this by itself. All you need to know is that Veronica and Buffy switched bodies at one point and that Buffy and Spike were already in a relationship when Buffy jumped off the tower. I'm assuming you're very familiar with BTVS S6. Spoilers for that and all of VM.  
> Disclaimer: I don't own BTVS or VM. A lot of lines are from the actual show. The title is from a song by Christina Perri.
> 
>  
> 
> Artwork: [A Barely Breathing Story by SusanMarieR](http://archiveofourown.org/works/492847)

He doesn’t really know how he lives now. Not that he can really be said to be living anyway. Either way, it hurts and he doesn’t like it. If it weren’t for the bloody chip in his head and his rarely admitted to love for the humans he’s surrounded himself with, he would’ve either given up the ghost or left a long time ago.

Instead his life is like this: he sleeps during the day unless there’s some respectable human type business he has to deal with, he patrols at night, fighting against his own kind, and he helps a sixteen year old girl with her homework. It’s a far cry from the life he used to have or ever imagined he would have. Still, it’s his life and it is what she would have wanted. His Slayer. He thinks so anyway and it’s not like he can just ask her.

They’ve time to grieve with demons and apocalypses in general being rather low during summer months for some reason. Spike highly doubts that it’s because the demons are going on vacation. The bloody Watcher had kicked it off back to England at the first available opportunity, though his checkbook makes regular appearances, and sometimes Spike envies him that freedom. But he’d made a promise and he keeps his promises. The wicca girls are living in Joyce’s old room now and he thinks Tara’s cooking might be the only thing keeping Dawn from complete nutrition deficiency. He really appreciates that bird more than he will ever say to her face.

Willow, on the other hand, she’s not handling this well, he can tell. He can tell because he’s not handling it well either. But she’s being bloody obvious about it while he takes his aggression out on demons and his tears out on Buffy’s grave. And he doesn’t ignore Dawn. Sometimes he feels like yelling at Red, but he knows that will only make her angry and skittish and Dawn uncomfortable. Being perceptive is not always a gift, he thinks to himself.

Still, something is going on with Willow, the whelp, and his girlfriend. They keep holding secret meetings and must think they’re awfully clever about hiding the fact. He snorts in derision at the thought. Willow drops remarks about spells she’s researching and Xander talks about how Buffy won’t like whatever Spike is doing, using the wrong tenses like it will somehow bring her back. He also guesses that they aren’t counting on how much Anya doesn’t care about keeping secrets. She hasn’t said it yet, but he’s banking she will. Then maybe the boy will stop acting like a complete twonk about Spike and the Slayer.

Spike doesn’t like to think about them. Just because he and Buffy had been dating when she died doesn’t really mean he’s gotten over any insecurities about how she must have felt about him. Sure she’d chosen to be with him, they’d had some great…some great…sex, but she’d never told him she loved him. He tells her all the time, even though she’s gone now. He has to talk to her, has to somehow assuage the guilt that flows through him whenever her name is mentioned.

Not that he says it that often. He and Dawn just say ‘her’ or ‘she’ whenever they have to mention her. He likes that about the Bit. He worries about her, wishes she could somehow get better, but he likes that she feels the same way he does. He doesn’t feel so alone. Though he really isn’t alone, not with Tara always buying him blood and smokes and Dawn constantly asking for his help and Veronica calling him every week wanting to make sure he hasn’t met the sun yet or some other misguided expression of friendship. That girl’s always way too nosy for her own good. He doesn’t admit that he appreciates it though. He can’t.

Right now he doesn’t have much time for appreciation or thought. The demons have startled to trickle back in, drawn back to the Hellmouth, and he’s finding it a bit hard to cope by himself. He’s more than capable, but like he’s always told his Slayer, numbers count. He has a lot of respect for her and how she’d managed to do this for five years. Granted, it’s like he also always told her, she had family and friends. What’s more she always had somebody supernatural backing her up, Angel or that other Slayer or him. Now he’s got a pathetic human, an ex-demon, a teenage girl, and two witches. True, Willow has one real kick to her, but she’s undisciplined and unfocused, grieving. He knows the feeling. He’s not suited for this kind of work. He’s a bloody vampire and he should be reveling in the Hellmouth, not guarding it. 

Still he fights and doesn’t give up and at least it’s not boring. But it’s hard. What scares him is the fact that one day there will be too many demons and he doesn’t think he’ll mind. It might even be good to finally just let go. He’s not a Slayer, but he might just have a death wish. 

But not tonight. Tonight he’s fighting hard and he grins a little, relishing the violence. He doesn’t have to worry about protecting anybody else or getting anywhere. Tara’s got Dawn and the other three are off doing whatever it is they don’t want them to know about. Right now he couldn’t care less. 

He ducks under a tree branch and hooks his leg behind the other vampire’s leg, making his head bang against it. The vamp’s not much more than a fledgling but Spike can tell there are other vamps out there tonight. Other fresh blood and his own is singing to put an end to it.

If he had a heartbeat it would be racing and sometimes he thinks that being alive would make the fight more brilliant. But, as it is, he has his fists and his fangs and he tears into the hordes of hell and it’s only in these moments that he feels right, that he doesn’t feel the bitter pain coursing through his veins instead of the stolen blood that actually does. But that’s all right, that’s fine. He’s Spike and this is what he does. Loves, fights, feels, joy and pain in every smile, soaked through with every tear.

He’s so busy fighting he almost doesn’t notice it when it happens. He’s fighting some sort of biker demons, avoiding the long chains they’re throwing at him, feeling the studs on their face tear through his knuckles. Their leader is tall and especially ugly and Spike can’t wait to rip his head off. He has his axe and he puts it to good use, chopping off heads and ducking blows, slamming elbows into noses, blood dripping down his face.

But then there’s energy, a massive throbbing in the air that stops them all in their tracks. It’s coming from _her_ cemetery, flowing through the air, putting pressure on everything it passes. It feels wrong, like the world has been turned inside out and won’t be put back. Spike staggers back from the weight of it and the demons are silent, their taunts falling into silence. He lifts his head up to the sky and knows deep down in his bones that something is wrong. Willow has done something and he should have known better.

He’s running, striking down any demon that tries to get in his way, but they’re all running, too. They’re running from the cemetery, from whatever has happened, and he knows they’re right to run. Whatever has happened is bad and so are they, but there’s bad and then there’s just wrong, and demons are probably more sensitive to that than humans or even vampires.

He clears the cemetery wall and sees a demon on a bike gunning straight for him. He stands still and waits, his adrenaline pumping like mad, his impossible circulatory system doing its job without any apparent reason. The bike draws almost level and he steps aside, bringing his arm up, knocking the demon from the bike. It crashes and it’s only seconds before Spike is getting on it, tearing through Sunnydale, heading toward Revello Drive.

He should be figuring out what the wrong-ness is, trying to help Willow with whatever issues she’s venting through magic, but he doesn’t have time for that. He’s made strides, he cares about humans, he’s gone further than any vamp ever has, he guarantees, but he still doesn’t have the ability to choose the greater good, to care about all of humanity rather than just the few small people he’s given his loyalty to. 

So he goes to Dawn, to Tara, to protect them, to get Tara’s knowledge, strength, and wisdom.

The house is dark when he gets there, but he figures that’s just Tara being smart. 

“It’s just me,” he announces to the house as he steps inside the door.

“Spike?” Tara asks quietly, coming forward with a flashlight.

“Yeah,” he confirms. “You two all right?”

“W-we’re okay. The demons are looting the town, I guess your rep i-isn’t quite enough.”

“Looks like,” he says. “They’re not to the campus yet, gonna take you two there. You should be safer. I gotta suss out what’s happening.”

“What was that thing?” Dawn asks, her face appearing out of the gloom, and he doesn’t have to ask what she means by thing.

She clutches at his arm and he can’t help but be reminded how young she really is.

“Gotta figure it’s someone with big magic guns,” he says, exchanging looks with Tara over Dawn’s head.

She ducks her head and when she brings it back up, her face is steel.

“I’ll try and w-work out what it was, but you have to go and find her.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he says. “Let’s go before the party gets here, yeah?”

He drives in front of Tara driving Joyce’s jeep like a bloody escort and sees them safely to the dorms. He feels a little bit ridiculous. He gets them inside one of Tara’s friend’s dorm rooms and takes one of the emergency cell phones they’ve recently procured from her.

“Let me know what you find out, yeah?” he says briskly, leaving.

“Spike,” Dawn says, stopping him, “be careful. I have to get my poker winnings from you.”

He clutches her to him a little bit.

“No worries, Bit, I never forget my debts.”

Doesn’t mean he always pays them, but he never forgets them.

He leaves and takes the bike and he’d be lying to himself if he can’t spare a little time to be really happy with his new toy. 

He drives back to the cemetery and finds the demons a little bit less frightened then they had been about half an hour ago. It both worries and reassures him. He slays every one of them that he comes across but he can’t find anything else. He doesn’t see any of the Scoobies wandering around the graves, but he’s working his way closer and closer to _her_ grave and somehow it feels harder to fight with each step there.

His hearing is picking up the sounds of fighting and screaming and small explosions, though not as many as one would think if a town was being ransacked by demon bikers. The good people of Sunnydale were obviously keeping their heads down and their children safe. About the only thing they’re good at, he thinks derisively to himself.

There’s a loud ringing in his duster pocket and he answers the cell phone, grunting as he stakes a vamp who has clearly picked the wrong night to rise.

“’Lo?”

“Spike!” comes Tara’s desperate voice on the other end, “Dawn’s gone.”

“Gone where?” he asks, jerking his axe back from a demon’s chest.

“S-she ran off. I don’t know where. You have to f-find her.”

“I’ll come get you,” Spike says.

“No, just find her. I-I don’t know what possessed her. I came into the room and s-she was gone. There wasn’t a fight or anything. I’ll look around the campus.”

“Glinda,” Spike says, exasperated.

“I’ll be careful,” she tells him and then that little ironic tone he secretly loves comes into her voice. “I am a witch, you know.”

“Never forgot,” he says, already back to his bike and taking off.

He searches the town, killing demons, seeing no people he could even halfway call his friends. His worry amps and grows with every second that doesn’t see him finding Dawn. He goes to all her favorite spots, the Bronze, the mall; he even goes back to the tower, where both of them have sometimes found comfort in grief. She’s nowhere and Tara hasn’t called him back either. He goes back to the house, hoping Dawn’s had enough sense to go home and call one of them. 

The demon danger is dying down. Something’s happened and they’re fleeing rather than rampaging. He doesn’t think it’s due to his skill alone even if he’s killed as many demons tonight as in practically all his long life before that. It makes him nervous and he wonders what thing Willow’s conjured to do something like that. It’s the only explanation that fits and that scares him.

The lights are on at the house and that makes him feel a bit better. He slips in the house, yelling for Dawn. He can hear her heartbeat upstairs and his relief is his only excuse for not noticing the second heartbeat.

“Why did you run off like that? I could rip your head off one handed and drink from your brain stem!” he yells.

Then there are feet on the stairs and he looks up and stops, just completely stops, because the world has stopped and everything is gone but that figure on the stairs. That’s the only thing that makes sense at this moment.

He can’t help but zero back to the last time they’d stood like this, them two. Her on the stairs and him looking up at her like he just can’t figure such a person out. She’s human and Slayer and see-through like a ghost, but he’s still never been able to fully figure her out. He thinks about how she asked him to take care of Dawn and how he promised her till the end of the world and how she’d kissed him and how he’d understood that was all she could give him at the moment.

He’s obviously progressed to full blown hallucinations now only she’s wearing different clothes and her knuckles are bruised and bloody.

And then it hits him.

It makes him mad. It makes him glad. It makes him everything at once.

“Spike,” Dawn’s soft voice cuts through his inner hemorrhaging and insanity, “look who it is.”

“What did she do?” is all he can breathe out.

“She's kind of- um...she's been through a lot with the...death. But I think she's okay.”

“Her hands,” he says quietly.

“Um, I was gonna fix 'em. I don't know how they got like that,” Dawn answered.

“I do. Clawed her way out of a coffin, that's how. Isn't that right?” he asks Buffy softly.

“Yeah. That's...what I had to do.”

He can barely hear her and from Dawn’s expression she hasn’t been talking much.

“Done it myself,” he says, moving closer and looking at Buffy. 

At a fully-physical-and-alive-and-in-front-of-him Buffy. He takes her hands gently and she looks at him, obviously unsure, but not moving back.

He smiles at her, trying to reassure her. Dawn babbles something about disinfectant and he lets her feel useful. She scampers upstairs, hair flying, and Spike takes a deep, unnecessary breath.

He leads Buffy toward the couch and sits her down, still holding her hands, examining her wounds. Her smell fills his nostrils and he tries not to inhale, not to allow himself to truly feel her. She’s not herself, she’s obviously traumatized and more likely to strike out like a wounded animal than let him have time to readjust to her presence. Besides, it’s not about him, is it?

“How long was I gone?”

Her voice startles him. He didn’t think she’d speak voluntarily yet.

“Hundred and forty-seven days yesterday,” he says, trying to smile nonchalantly and failing utterly. “Uh, hundred and forty-eight today. ‘Cept today doesn’t count, does it?” Buffy doesn't respond. He looks at her hands again, then back at her face. “How long was it for you...where you were?”

She pauses.

“Longer.” 

She looks in his eyes and he almost doesn’t recognize her. There’s a pain and a loss so evident in her gaze that he reels back from it. But he keeps looking and after a few moments he can see a spark of his Slayer, hidden in the depths of fear and confusion. It gives him hope and he’s just about to feel like maybe it all worked out and somebody really is looking out for him when the door bangs open and the Scoobies Who Just Can’t Leave Sodding Well Enough Alone barge into the room.

Tara is with them, her phone to her ear, when she sees him and stops, putting it down. The beginning of a ring sounds through the air from his phone and then abruptly cuts off.

They don’t look surprised to see Buffy, not even Tara, and that confirms any remaining doubt he has on the matter. There is a moment of silence while they all look at each other and then Spike removes his hands from Buffy’s and stands up, moving to the other side of the room. He knows they don’t want him there and if it wasn’t for the fact that they’d just been resurrecting his bloody girlfriend, he might have just left and given in to the overwhelming emotions squirming beneath his skin.

“We were so worried,” Willow finally says. 

Buffy looks blank and says nothing.

“Why’d you run off like that?” Xander asks.

Anya just looks at them and Tara looks to Spike.

“Did you find her?” Tara asks.

“Bit’s upstairs,” Spike says, going for calm. “Figure she saw big sis and dashed after her. They were here when I got here.”

Dawn comes downstairs then, disinfectant in one hand and a bandage in the other.

“Dawn, I was so worried!” Tara says, her tone sharper than normal.

Dawn flushes, and then turns defiant.

“It was Buffy.”

“Don’t you think I would have liked to have known that?” Tara asks, softer now.

Dawn looks down. Spike notices that Willow does as well.

“Sorry,” Dawn whispers.

Spike looks back to Buffy, he’s never looked away, and she is obviously about ready to fall apart in a not-really-alive-again-yet sort of way.

“Why don’t you take your sis upstairs,” he tells Dawn. “Bathroom’s more the place for such things. Gotta ask the Wonder Trio here some questions.”

Tara looks at him, indecision and pleading on her face, but she follows Dawn, leading a silent Buffy upstairs. Buffy’s silent acquiescence is all it really takes for the rage and worry to reach its boiling point.

Willow and Xander look after them, anxiety all over their faces.

“What the bloody hell were you thinking?” Spike says, after they’re gone, voice seething in anger.

“This is none of your business,” Xander says hotly.

“I see,” Spike says, rolling his eyes, “the bloke sleeping with the resurrected bird gets no say in the matter.”

Xander lurches forward but Anya puts her arm against his chest and holds him back.

“I told you Spike would be angry. That wasn’t a little love spell we just did, Xander.”

“Demon-girl’s right. That was full-blooded black magic, wasn’t it, Red?” Spike asks, without looking at her.

Willow’s quivering and defiant and all the things that make her someone he watches very carefully.

Evidently not carefully enough.

“I had to. Buffy was in trouble,” she says.

“You didn’t tell me,” Spike says tightly, barely holding in his anger. “I fought beside you all summer and you didn’t tell me. Then you gave no thought, no bloody thought at all to the consequences.” Now that the initial joy and confusion is gone, there’s only fear and anger to take their place. “You could’ve blown up the world. You could’ve brought her back a zombie. You sure as hell did something that we’ll all have to pay in blood for. The thing with magic, there’s always consequences. Always.”

“Come on, Spike,” Xander says, his animosity slipping a little, “you of all people should be psyched she’s back. Isn’t that all you need to feed your little deluded dreams?”

“What I want isn’t in question,” Spike said. “What you did is. When did I get to be the mature, responsible white hat of this crowd anyway? I’d want her back more than anything, but I’d never risk her to do it. Still, she’s here now and now we’re keeping her, no matter what it costs her. You’re pathetic wankers is what you lot are.”

He pushes past them, heading out the open door. Willow’s still defiant and trembling, the air around her crackling in magic. He can’t help but smell the blood staining her face and fingers and see the exhaustion that’s barely holding her bones together. It terrifies him.

He knows he should stay, should knock their heads together a bit, should comfort Tara and help Dawn, and somehow get through to the woman who used to be his Slayer but…he’s done. He’s reached the end of whatever rope he might have had. He’s about to fall apart himself. He’s starting to feel his injuries from the night spent fighting and his blood lust is beginning to take over, his reason failing, and emotions riding high.

He leans against his tree in her yard and closes his eyes for just one moment. He feels wet that is not blood running down his face and for just one second he is the saddest and happiest man alive.

But that can’t last and he takes his bike back to his crypt and guzzles three bags of blood, not bothering to heat or texturize them. He’s exhausted and hurt and dirty and he takes a shower, changing his clothes, bandaging up the worst of his injuries. The others will heal themselves before the night is over. All he really wants is to sleep and pretend like it didn’t happen. But he doesn’t really.

Instead he puts his duster back on; he’ll clean it later, and gets back on his bike and slips into her house before the sun rises. The demons have all gone so there’s no need to protect the town any longer. Sunnydale can clean itself up. The house is quiet. He finds Dawn sleeping in the hallway outside Buffy’s room and gently picks her up, carrying her to her room. He’s unsurprised to find Tara sleeping in Dawn’s bed with her. Dawn wakes up a bit as he puts her in her own bed.

“Is she really back, Spike?” she asks, hope and fear in her voice.

“Yeah, yeah, she is,” he answers.

“What does that mean?”

“That we gotta be better than our best,” he says, kissing her forehead and pulling the covers up over her. “Now you sleep. I’ll watch over her.”

He slips into Buffy’s room and knows she isn’t asleep. The whole room is filled with her, with the scent of her confusion, her exhaustion, her fear.

“It’s me, pet,” he says, stepping over to the bed slowly, not wanting to get the sharp point of a stick in an embarrassing place. “I’m just here if you need it. You can tell me to go.”

She doesn’t say anything but he can see her clearly, sitting against her headboard, staring at him. Her hands are bandaged now and he smells the sharp disinfectant. He doesn’t move, not wanting to pressure her or scare her.

“Why did you go?” she finally asks.

“Go?” he asks back.

“You never go,” she says slowly. “But when I came back downstairs you were gone.”

“Had to get cleaned up a bit,” he says lightly. “Spent a lot of the night doing your job as it were. But I was always coming back.”

“I know,” she says after a minute and then shifts down on the bed.

He takes it as an invitation and slips his duster off, sliding in next to her, gathering her in his arms. He almost bursts with the familiarity and joy of it.

“Sleep, love,” he says, “I got you.”

She holds him back.


	2. Veronica and the Unexpected Phone Call

Veronica is arguing with Logan. It’s not like that’s new or anything but she finds herself unusually irritated with him. Ever since the funeral he’s been clingier than normal and she is beginning to get the urges to flee that had plagued her when they’d first gotten together. She doesn’t feel right about it, she doesn’t want it, but that’s never really stopped anything from happening to her.

Tonight they’re arguing about colleges. It might seem like a normal couple-y thing to argue about but Veronica knows they’re really arguing about the longevity and validity of their relationship. She thinks they’re too young for this. She feels too old for this. It’s just rather confusing.

Part of her problem is her pride, she knows this. She wants to be independent and free and stand on her own two feet. It’s always been a little bit of an issue with her since most of the people she’s loved in life have let her down at one point or another. That and all the worst of human nature she sees in her job. But Logan is different. Logan has money. He has the resources and wherewithal to do whatever he wants for whoever he wants and he wants to do it for her.

She’s always wanted to go to Stanford, but she forfeited her chances for any scholarships when she’d blown off a test for Aaron's murder trial. Granted, it was a really important trial, but still…it has cost her. She’s got the grades and she can get into the college, but she can’t afford it. Logan can and she doesn’t want to let him help her.

Puts a little crimp in the dating relationship, she thinks, pinching her nose.

“Do you think I want you to go to school so far away?” he snaps at her. “But I’m offering you the ability to get what you desire. This isn’t about me trying to own you.”

“Whether you’re trying or not you’ll succeed, it’s just how it works,” she says.

“Right, I forgot, Veronica Mars invented the rules of life.”

“Veronica Mars doesn’t ignore the rules of life because she doesn’t have billions of dollars!” Veronica snaps.

“She might one day,” he says, eyes flashing, and her heart jumps a little even as a flare of anger runs through her.

“Don’t start that again,” she warns him.

“Too big and scary for you? Too much of a commitment?”

“We just graduated high school!”

“I didn’t say tomorrow!” Logan says.

“I didn’t say never!” she hurls back at him.

“Okay,” he says, instantly cooled down in the way that she hates because it means that he’s being rational and she isn’t.

“Okay what?”

“Okay. So if you’re not going to Stanford where are you going to go?” he asks too calmly. “Hearst like Mac and Wallace? Keep the gang all together?”

“We’d be such a lame gang,” she says, taking his conversational way out, attempting to keep calm herself.

“I don’t know. You get pretty sexy when you lurk in the shadows. Maybe get your bald pal to give you a couple of tips on riding a motorcycle and you’re all set to rule that school.”

“You’re about ten years old, you know that, right?” she asks, as he pulls her close to him and a different heat starts to overwhelm the anger she’s feeling.

“You’d never do this with a ten year old,” he says, bending down to her lips.

She has to agree because that would be so so wrong. This, however, is so so right. She never has to doubt their relationship here. Logan is fire and need against her mouth and she lets her body mold against his, feeling it rub against him in all the right places.

He leans her against the wall, placing one hand behind her head and the other starts to creep up her shirt. Under the ministrations of his talented tongue she starts to forget that they’re in her dad’s office and anyone could come in at any moment and just enjoys kissing him. Lots of kissing, full-lipped and nibbles here and licks of tongue there, and soon he’s moved down to her neck and she’s forgotten the things he can do there until she moans loudly, running her hands through his hair because she doesn’t want him to stop and she never wants to do anything but this ever again.

And he hasn’t really done anything that good yet.

The phone rings though and she starts and he starts and he knocks his head up against hers and she gets stars in her eyes and not in the pleasant way she’s been anticipating. Logan swears and she has to agree with his sentiments.

Still rather dazed Veronica picks up the phone.

“Mars Investigations. How may I help you?”

“By hanging up,” Logan mutters and she glares at him.

“Veronica? It’s Dawn.”

“Hey, you,” Veronica says, going for perky. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m good. In fact…I’m good because…well, Buffy’s back.”

“Excuse me?” Veronica says, not understanding what was said in the slightest.

“Buffy’s alive,” Dawn repeats. “Willow brought her back.”

“How does that even happen?” Veronica asks, getting enough presence of mind to put the phone on speaker so Logan will stop looking at her like that and realize that this is a Very Big Deal phone call.

“Willow did a spell. I didn’t even know about it until it happened. But she brought her back to life,” Dawn explains.

Logan exchanges glances with her and Veronica doesn’t know what to say either. 

“Buffy?” he mouths to her and she nods.

He shakes his head a little and sits down.

“Dawn…how does that work?” Veronica asks.

“It’s complicated magic-y type stuff,” Dawn says. “I don’t really get it either. But she’s actually Buffy, not like a zombie or anything. Which can happen.”

Logan rubs his temples a little and Veronica feels like joining him.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s…different. We-we think she was in a hell dimension and that’s why she’s so quiet. She acts a bit like Angel did when he came back from hell, though not so much with the feral growling I’m told.”

“My life used to be so simple,” Logan mumbles. “Hollywood starlets, binge drinking, murder trials.”

“Is that Logan?” Dawn asks.

“Sorry, he’s here on speaker; I thought he’d want to know,” Veronica says lamely.

“Yeah, yeah. But, um, well, I just wanted you to know.”

“How are you, Dawn?” Logan asks, surprising Veronica yet again with his perception.

“A little worried, but I have to be happy,” Dawn says. “I mean, it’s Buffy. And it was bad before. It could get better.”

“Do you need anything? Is Spike all right?” Veronica asks.

“Spike’s mad,” Dawn says softly. “He doesn’t think the magic was right.”

“Wouldn’t the vampire know?” Logan asks, exchanging another look with Veronica.

“I just want Buffy back,” Dawn says. “I can’t talk long though. I have to go help Tara. We’re calling people this evening. People who can know the truth. We’re trying to figure out what to tell police and government type people.”

“Call me if anything changes or you need anything at all, okay?” Veronica presses.

“I will,” Dawn promises.

“You don’t mind if I tell my dad or Mac or Wallace, right?”

“No…no.”

“Goodbye, Dawnie.”

Veronica pushes the off button and slowly slides to the floor, her mind completely blown yet again by a call from Sunnydale, CA.

“You okay?” Logan asks her, not looking at all okay himself.

“No, you?”

“No,” he replies.

“So…resurrection spells.”

“A real thing,” Logan says.

“Guess so.”

“That worry you?”

“More than a little,” Veronica says.

“Scare you?”

“More than a little,” Veronica repeats.

“What should we do?” he asks.

“Tell everyone,” she suggests.

So they do. Veronica calls her dad and Logan calls Mac and then Veronica calls Wallace and they have the same startled conversation with each of them and it’s one of the most bizarre things Veronica has ever been a part of and she once switched bodies with a vampire Slayer. 

When they’re done, nothing else doing, they sit there for a minute or two processing and Veronica doesn’t even know how to start dealing with this. After a few minutes Logan’s hand finds its way to hers and she’s grateful for the human contact. Thinking about somebody coming back from the dead is bringing up every lame zombie movie he’s ever made her watch and while no one has ever been able to say that Veronica Mars is afraid of the dark, she kind of wishes it were daytime.

“What do you wanna do now?” Logan asks finally.

“Go home and go to bed,” she answers.

“Come on then, Mars,” he says, pulling her up and grabbing her stuff for her. “I got a ride home with your name on it.”

He takes her home and they don’t talk much. She doesn’t know what to say because how is an evening supposed to progress from fighting about colleges to making out to hearing that somebody came back to life?

He kisses her goodnight almost absently and she knows his mind is probably working even harder than hers. But she can’t think about that right now.

So she goes inside and her dad isn’t home so she does what she’s wanted to do since Dawn called, and that is to call Spike. She still thinks it’s kind of funny but he had a phone put in his crypt over the summer so Tara and Dawn could reach him and she knows she’s one of the few people who has the number. How he set it up in the first place, that she doesn’t know.

“Knew I’d be hearing from you, pet,” is how he answers the phone.

“Spike, what happened?” Veronica asks.

“Red messed up big time. But…Slayer’s back,” he replies.

“Is she okay? Dawn said something about her being in hell.”

“That’s the general party line. Wherever she was it’s hard being back here. Barely speaks, zones out, can still fight like anything though,” he says, pride in his voice.

“I want to come see her,” Veronica says.

“I’d wait,” he says quietly. “Too much noise puts her in a tizzy. Plus my bleeding granddad got all righteously worried and stormed up here the minute he found out. Buffy didn’t have two words to say to him and he took a swing at me and things got a little ugly. The other Scoobies are having kittens as it is and the Watcher will be flying in soon.”

“I just…”

“Wanna help? Yeah, Private Eye, join the club, but time’s key here. Slayer’s in a heap of confusion and adding more people to the mix ain’t gonna help.”

“Okay, but you’ll let me know when you think it’s a good time?” Veronica asks.

“My word as a vampire,” Spike promises.

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“All you’ll get, ducks. Live with it,” he tells her affectionately.

“Wanna tell me how you’re doing?” she asks then.

She hears him exhale unnecessarily on the other side of the line and she pictures him in his chair, cigarette dangling in one hand, a glass of whiskey within reach, and she worries.

“Why wouldn’t I be glad she’s back?” he evades the question.

“Dawn said you were mad.”

“Cause people shouldn’t come back from the bloody dead!” he explodes and she concludes that Dawn was right. “I’m proof enough of that. Red messed with some powerful black magic and now we’re all gonna have to pay the price. No one gets away with getting something like her back without paying through the nose for it. Sides, it’s not like she really included me in the idea or thought it out. She left the Slayer to claw her way out of her coffin by herself.”

Veronica’s eyes widen and she tries desperately hard not to imagine that. She still can’t completely push away memories of pounding on a freezer door, barely being able to breathe, feeling heat and space press in around her.

“Beyond possible consequences and trauma, how are you?” she asks.

“Oh, just beyond that?” He pauses a minute. “I’m happy to see her. Held her all night that first one. But I don’t know how this is gonna work.”

“You’ll manage and so will she. You’re both strong,” Veronica assures him.

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

They hang up shortly after that and Veronica tries to get some sleep. She doesn’t want to think or feel, she just wants to forget for a while because she knows that things are different now.

She does sleep and the next morning her dad’s home and he makes her breakfast just the way she likes it.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks, as they eat.

“College, oddly enough,” she answers.

“Nothing to do with vampire slaying and people coming back from the dead?” he asks.

“A little bit, but mostly college actually,” Veronica persists.

“Well, then,” he says, folding his hands under his chin, “what’s the verdict?”

“There isn’t one,” she says gloomily. “You know I wanted Stanford but I blew that chance. Logan says he’ll pay for it, I don’t want him to.”

“Good,” he says and she looks wryly at him.

She knows all about her dad not wanting her to depend too much on the rich boy who has the tendency to mouth off to him.

“I could always go to Hearst,” she says.

“I’m sensing there’s a third option here,” her dad says shrewdly.

He’s always too shrewd.

“This is what ties in with the news we got last night. I also have been accepted to the University of Sunnydale,” Veronica admits.

He looks sharply at her.

“I didn’t know you applied.”

“It was a whim this summer. I didn’t tell Logan either if it makes you feel better.”

“A little,” he says.

“Good, because I think I want to go there,” Veronica says quickly.

“Your college choice should be based on what you want to learn and what career you want. It shouldn’t be based on feeling bad for some people who are going through a rough time or have anything to do with people coming back from the dead,” he tells her sternly.

“I wouldn’t normally,” Veronica protests.

“No one would normally.”

“I know what you mean, Dad. But I can get the programs I want at Sunnydale. I can also be a good friend. I’ll still be close enough to drive home on the weekends and all holidays,” she coaxes.

“True, but still not the point. You’re reaching.”

“I’m not saying I’m doing it, I just want you to know it’s an option.”

“Okay, you’re an adult now and I will respect your decisions,” he says, sighing.

“Did you practice saying that in the mirror?” she teases

“Why would I need to tell myself that?”

“Because that boyish exterior is oh-so-misleading?” she says.

He glares at her and steals some bacon from her plate.

“Go on, get out of here. College can’t come soon enough.”

“Now who’s reaching?” she asks.

“I believe it’s you…for the bacon.”

He shoves it closer to her and they eat in companionable silence.

Just after breakfast her cell phone rings and she answers it immediately when she looks at the caller ID.

“It’s Tara.”

“Hi, how are you?”

“A little tired,” Tara admits.

“I can imagine.”

“No-no, not really. We all had a shadow-ghost t-thing try to kill us last night,” Tara says.

“What?” Veronica says in disbelief.

“Side effect from Willow’s spell,” Tara says sadly.

“What happened?” Veronica asks.

“Rode in on Buffy’s back from hell, possessed us, tried to kill us. Then Buffy chopped i-its head off.”

“You’re all okay?”

“Physically,” Tara says, which leads Veronica to think no one is okay in any other way.

“So whatever consequences Spike was worried about already happened?”

“Maybe. Still doesn’t change the fact that what happened shouldn’t have happened,” Tara says.

“You know this magic stuff, tell me why what Willow did was so wrong,” Veronica asks, curious.

“She summoned a black god, she used d-dark magic, she took innocent b-blood, she-she upset the balances. It’s hard to explain, but that’s-that’s really bad for the world. It’s dangerous and the only thing she had on her side was power. And she didn’t trust me. She knew I-I wouldn’t approve.”

“And you shouldn’t have,” Veronica surmises.

“Right. I’m so worried for her, Veronica.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“She-she doesn’t think,” Tara says, sounding frustrated. “She just wants to fix things and she could hurt someone. She already has.”

“How’s Buffy?” Veronica asks.

“I-I don’t know,” Tara admits.

“You can talk to me anytime,” Veronica says softly.

“I know. That’s why I called.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Maybe soon. I-I’m just taking stock right now.”

“I know the feeling. But I’m here for you anytime,” Veronica promises.

They speak for a little while longer and Veronica lets her know that she might be coming to Sunnydale, but there’s not much else to say and Veronica hangs up, worried.

She’s never good at choices. Decisions regarding stakeouts or solving mysteries, that she can do. Blackmail she excels at, revenge even more so. But those options don’t apply here and she’s confused. She doesn’t understand magic; she doesn’t understand that world, despite having lived in it for a while. All she knows is that there’s something dark festering in her friends and she can’t really help. Veronica’s worth lies in helping, in fixing, in controlling outcomes. She gets Willow a little bit in that way. But she has the feeling that Willow’s desire to help comes from something darker.

Or maybe not. She doesn’t want to think about it. She focuses on Buffy, on having that immense force of good back in the world. Surely that can’t be wrong and it also can’t be wrong to want to go to Sunnydale and help out while not hurting herself in the process.

Either way she knows she’s going to have to talk to Logan about it soon. She’s dreading the conversation a little bit. She never worries about holding her own against him; she worries about hurting him when she doesn’t have to give what he wants or needs. The choices are a bit overwhelming and she sinks back down on her bed, mind occupied with possibilities and the future.


	3. Spike and the Flooded Basement

Spike digs through the junk in his drawer. He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for but he needs an occupation. He’s not one for sitting still and having to be extra still around Buffy is making him crazy. He’ll do anything for her, but this is taxing his physical and mental strength.

She still isn’t talking a lot. It’s driving Willow and Xander up the wall the way she doesn’t respond to them. They keep thinking everything should be better now that she’s back. Spike knows better. It’s been a week and they expect her to just pop back to normal? Bloody idiots.

The night before they had judged she could handle bad news. Without consulting him or Tara. Again. So they sat her down in the living room and told her about her financial situation being shot to hell with her being back in custody of Dawn and the life insurance they have to give back and, while Spike normally loves her for it, Anya’s blunt delivery of the news was not what Buffy needed to hear, he’s pretty sure.

The funny part is Buffy’s calm acceptance of the news. Not really funny, but odd. She tells them the next morning that she has a job interview at a bank. That’s the funny part.

Spike hears a noise from behind him and doesn’t have to turn around to know she’s there.

“Sorry about the mess, pet,” he says. “But take a load off.”

She sits and then looks at him blankly. He doesn’t know why she keeps coming to him. Is it because she finds comfort in him? Because he’s not nagging her like her other friends? Because she still wants a relationship with him? He can’t really ask her.

“Uh...I do remember what I said,” he blurts out before he can stop himself. “The promise. To protect her. If I had done that...even if I didn't make it...you wouldn't have had to jump.” She doesn’t say anything but he forces himself to go on, in fact, he can’t really help it. “But I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but...after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again...do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways. Every night I save you.” 

Then he feels bad for putting his guilt on her, for forcing expectations about what their relationship should be like. But his guilt overwhelms him sometimes, flooding through every pore, and he would laugh at anyone who tells him he hasn’t got a conscience. He knows he hasn’t got one, but he’s got her in his head, his heart, his every particle.

She’s so lifeless before him, just sitting, just breathing.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, forcing a smile. “I don’t expect you to…just let me clean up the place a bit and we can watch some telly if you like.”

She nods slightly and he thinks she looks relieved and he resolves to keep his big mouth shut from now on.

He resolves it again when they’re in her living room and Giles walks in the door. For a minute everything’s great, like old times, because Buffy smiles and nearly breaks Giles in two when she hugs him and he calls her a miracle. Then Giles starts to ask questions and Buffy closes down again and Giles looks just as worried as Spike feels.

“Are you patrolling again or do you want more time?” Giles asks.

Buffy nods slowly.

“I wanna patrol. Spike will go with me,” she says.

“I’m sure back up is just the thing you need,” Giles says and Spike feels oddly grateful to the other man despite how much he resents him for leaving them all in the lurch.

But Giles gives Spike an idea with his words and even though he’s already thought about it, it is this moment when he decides. He makes sure that Buffy is okay being alone with her old Watcher before he leaves to go to the kitchen and use the phone.

“Hello?” asks the voice on the other end.

“Private Eye, it’s me,” he says.

“How’s it going?” Veronica asks, her voice instantly alert.

“Watcher’s here. Buffy’s patrolling. I think you should come see her. Need some back up,” Spike says.

“If you wanted my dog all you had to do was say so,” she jokes and he rolls his eyes.

“Sure, bring Scottie down, too,” he returns the favor.

“I’m so telling him you said that,” Veronica says.

“Never suspected otherwise,” Spike assures her.

“You know he can beat you up?” Veronica says, still with the jokes.

“You know I can run very fast?” He can practically hear her smiling.

“Well, I got great news for you, my friend. I have been accepted to the grand University of Sunnydale and I happen to have an interview there this weekend.”

“You shouldn’t waste your talents on this town, luv,” Spike says, frowning.

“I’m not,” Veronica protests. “The school’s not that bad, government demon experimentation aside, and I want to be able to help if I can.”

“And what’s Scottie think about it?” Spike asks with raised eyebrow.

“Uh…he’s processing,” Veronica says delicately.

“Cowardly way of saying he’s mad,” Spike says bluntly.

“He wants to help me go to Stanford and I won’t let him,” Veronica admits.

“Too proud?” he asks.

“Let’s not go there,” Veronica says.

Spike shifts until he’s sitting on the counter and ponders how to help another person’s relationship when his own is so unsure.

“Fine, I’ll leave it be. For now. Just let me know when you get here. I’m assuming he’s accompanying you?”

“My, how posh we are today,” she teases. “Yes, I’m surprised the whole town doesn’t want to come with me. Just to make sure I stay gone.”

“I’ve just realized I might need to warn all my snitches you’ll be back in town,” Spike says.

“It’s an interview about a scholarship and I haven’t decided I’m coming. Hold that bleached head back a bit.”

“Holding. I’ll tell the Slayer you’re coming,” Spike says, unreasonably happy Veronica and Logan will be coming to Sunnydale.

As they hang up there’s a loud bang from the basement and Spike’s down there before anybody else even makes it to the kitchen. He stops short on the top step because there’s water spraying everywhere from burst pipes and he surveys the damage with a sinking feeling.

He feels Buffy behind him, warm and unmoving.

“Something else to fix,” she says quietly and goes back into the kitchen.

“Good thing you got that job interview, Buff,” Xander says and Spike supposes the whelp is trying to be helpful.

“Can’t wait,” she says with a forced smile but it obviously makes Xander happy.

“You can support yourself and Dawn, maybe not have to depend on other people so much. You’ll be feeling all Buffy-shaped again and ready to slay those vamps and kick ass,” Xander continues.

“Overdoing it,” Spike says and Xander glares at him.

Spike isn’t an idiot and it would definitely take a really special idiot to not notice that Xander’s been making digs at him ever since Buffy got back. Trying to get Buffy to see his viewpoint, maybe they’re attempts to get back at Spike for yelling at them about resurrecting her. All in all, Spike’s relationship with the boy has gone way downhill and Spike thinks that’s actually a bad thing in the long run and marvels at his own maturity.

Xander goes down in the basement and works on the pipes while Buffy and Giles talk some more and Spike wanders upstairs to help Dawn with her homework before they patrol.

“What was the noise?” Dawn asks, much more accustomed to loud sounds than any teenager should be.

“Burst pipes. Basement’s flooded,” Spike reports.

“The Christmas decorations!” she wails, sitting up.

“Harris is working on getting what’s needed out of the line of fire. You work on your history paper,” Spike instructs her.

“Tell me again why a vampire doesn’t know anything about Central America in the eighteen hundreds?” she asks, settling down again.

“Wasn’t there, Bit. It’s a big world, yeah? But we can work on it,” Spike says.

“I’d rather ask you a question.” Spike braces himself because he knows what this is about. “Buffy’s not opening up,” Dawn says unhappily. “She’s not getting back to herself. She’s just closed down. You two haven’t woken me up being gross at all.”

Spike grimaces.

“Not exactly what she’s got on her mind, I’m betting. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s hard. Gonna be. Gotta accept that.”

“But she’s my sister and she barely looks at me,” Dawn says, looking down.

“You’re the one who got her down from that tower, not me, not Red, not the whelp,” Spike says, sitting down next to her. “You matter to your sis. I know it’s hard feeling young and like no one wants your opinion, but that’s the way it is. You gotta help her and it’s not fair, but it’s life.”

“The hardest thing in life is to live in it,” she mumbles to himself and that’s a phrase he’s heard her say over and over again this whole hateful summer.

“Too bloody right. Now you need any help or have you got this? Gotta patrol,” he says.

“Is Buffy going with you?” she asks.

“Yup, first time. Progress, huh?” Spike says, wanting to report something good at least.

Dawn smiles and he’s relieved and heads back downstairs after he tells her he’ll look it over when she’s finished to where he can feel Buffy out on the porch. He passes Giles and Willow arguing in the kitchen and doesn’t stop.

Outside is cool and soft and, though he can still hear them, it’s better. It’s better because he’s not surrounded by walls and suffering people and because she’s there.

“I wish they’d stop fighting,” she says, nodding back towards the kitchen.

“You want me to take them out?” he asks. “Give me a hell of a headache, but I could probably thin the herd a little.” Buffy actually grins and he relaxes even more. “Knew I could get a grin.” 

She smiles and sits down on the porch.

He joins her, content to sit in silence.

“Why are you always around when I’m miserable?” she asks quietly.

“Cause that's when you're alone, I reckon. I'm not one for crowds myself these days,” he says, lighting up a cigarette.

“Me neither,” she says.

“That works out nicely then.” 

Their silence is comforting, not awkward, and he feels like maybe things will be better between them.

It lasts for only a short while because the voices grow in anger and volume and he’s sure Buffy can hear them as clearly as he can.

“You're a very stupid girl,” says Giles. “Do you have any idea what you've done? The forces you've harnessed, the lines you've crossed?”

“Giles, I did what I had to do. I did what nobody else could do,” Willow says shortly.

“Oh, there are others in this world who can do what you did. You just don't want to meet them,” Giles retorts.

“I brought Buffy back into this world, a-and maybe the word you should be looking for is congratulations.”

“Having Buffy back in the world makes me feel...indescribably wonderful, but I wouldn't congratulate you if you jumped off a cliff and happened to survive,” Giles says.

“That's not what I did, Giles.”

“You were lucky,” Giles replies sternly.

“I wasn't lucky. I was amazing,” Willow protests. “And how would you know? You weren't even there.”

Spike reckons the Watcher abandonment issues run full-circle around their little group.

“If I had been, I'd have bloody well stopped you. I warned you back when you ensouled Angel that these forces weren’t something to be taken lightly. You’ve been foolish, reckless, and irresponsible. I’m highly disappointed in you. The magics you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!” Giles lectures, and while Spike agrees with him, he doesn’t see this ending well. 

“You're right. The magics I used are very powerful. _I'm_ very powerful. And maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off.” Spike and Buffy listen in silence, but he feels her stiffen. He places a hand on her shoulder and she looks at him, expressionless. “You’re an old man who can’t comprehend true power,” Willow’s voice says, dark and ugly. “Don’t stand in my way.”

“Are you threatening me?” Giles asks, his voice astonished.

There’s a short pause wherein Spike wonders if he should go in there and knows Buffy must be thinking the same thing. He knows neither of them wants to.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Willow says, sounding more like she’s about to cry. “Look, I don’t want to fight. Spike’s yelled at me, Tara won’t even look at me, and Buffy’s practically a zombie. I’m sorry. I can’t take any more lectures. Can’t you please just be happy she’s back? I was trying to help her.”

“I realize that.” Giles speaks softer now too but Spike can hear him. “But you have to be more careful, more in control. Learn more about what magic means than what it does. Of course…of course seeing Buffy is more than…more than I could ever have hoped for.”

There’s some muffled sobbing and Spike can practically see them in there hugging though if he were Giles he’d be backing the hell away from the witch right about now. He doesn’t feel any better, but he understands Giles and where the man’s coming from. He just hopes Buffy doesn’t feel worse from the conversation even though he knows she will.

“Happy as clams now,” he tells her and she nods, standing up.

“Patrol now?” she asks and she actually sounds a bit eager.

He guesses that has a lot more to do with wanting to get away from the house than actual patrolling.

“I got your back, Slayer,” he says, throwing his cigarette on the porch. 

She places one fashionably attired foot on it, grinding out the light.

Patrol goes well and it makes Spike happy. He feels like maybe she can turn some corners; get away from the initial heaviness of being alive again.

She has her job interview the next day and when she comes home she’s sweating and her skirt is torn and she doesn’t say anything other than that it was a demon before she goes upstairs.

He doesn’t follow her.

The next few days are weird; Giles offers to pay for the water damage and repairs and then moves into a hotel. The plumber can’t get there for a week. Willow and Tara are more comfortable but Spike still sees the way Tara looks at the other witch. Harris and his girl are obviously on the fritz cause she’s not coming over and the only thing the boy does is mope. Dawn and Buffy spend some time together. He has no idea where he stands with Buffy.

Veronica comes and she brings sass and the world and hope with her. Logan, too. Spike’s never been so glad to see the two of them.

She hugs him for a long time and then Buffy for even longer. Spike sees Buffy hug her back and knows he made the right call. 

“I see it didn’t take long to understand what the fashions are again,” Logan teases Buffy when he hugs her and when she laughs it’s the first time since she’s been back and everyone who’s been around exchange looks over Buffy’s and Veronica’s and Logan’s oblivious heads.

“Gotta keep you around,” Spike mumbles, shaking Logan’s hand.

They catch up for a while and it’s like one of those normal family moments that Spike’s observed over the years and hates and loves at the same time. He never quite feels like he’s a part of them and never feels all the way that he wants to be. But it’s normal and it’s life and that’s what she should do and she’s where he wants to be. Just more confusion for him.

Buffy’s happier now though. She looks like she’s going to live instead of die. She laughs and she talks and makes eye contact. Spike isn’t fooled entirely. He sees she’s making an effort for her friends, but he also sees she knows she can’t live that other way any longer.

Veronica and Logan leave that afternoon for her interview and she promises to let them know what happens and what she decides. Spike notices Logan’s jaw clenching, but he can’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say anyway.

There’s quiet and there’s calm again. Willow and Tara get all registered for a new semester. Anya apparently decides to forgive Xander for whatever the idiot’s done. Giles works at the shop again. Dawn and her annoying friend Janice go shopping. Buffy doesn’t get the bank job but she does slay the demon that interrupted her interview and, until Spike hauls him out of there, his corpse floats in the still flooded basement.

Veronica calls one night.

“I got the money.”

“We going to Vegas?” Spike asks.

“You can. At night,” she points out.

“Naw, think I’ll pass,” he replies.

“Well, then I’ll see you when I get there,” Veronica says.

“You’re coming then?” he surmises.

“Surprised?” she asks.

“Not really. How’s your boy?”

“Resigned,” Veronica says. “He’s already told me how he plans to abuse his personal plane to come see me.”

“Right, cause a two hour drive is so long,” Spike says, rolling his eyes.

“Long enough,” Veronica says.

“You gonna miss him?”

“Of course,” she answers.

“You coming just because you can’t not help people?” Spike asks next.

“You saying you don’t need the help?” she counters.

“I’m saying don’t put your life on hold for ours,” Spike replies.

“Sometimes I wish you’d be just a little bit more evil,” Veronica teases.

“You don’t know evil,” he says, feeling a pinch off, despite how glad he is that she’s coming.

“I’ve seen my share,” she says and he remembers she probably has.

“See you soon, ducks,” he says, pretty much the only apology he can make.

“Be careful,” she says, evidently accepting it.

“Too boring,” he replies.

She laughs and hangs up.

Spike wonders what it all means now. To love humans, to feel bound to them, to wonder if he can ever have the one thing he wants more than anything. Why is he even here? 

Then he laughs at himself and makes a remark about brooding cavemen and goes to sleep.

Next day he’s sitting outside the Magic Box smoking. It’s a bit too light for him to make it into the shop so he waits for the sun to move.

There’s movement and then Buffy comes into the alley and stops when she sees him.

“Had to give Dawn her lunch,” she says.

“Great big sister stuff,” he says, and then looks more closely at her. “You okay?”

“I had to give the talk,” she says. He looks a bit confused, he’s sure. “To Willow and Xander. They feel unsure about-about bringing me back. I told them I was in hell.”

He’s not surprised. He knows how much she wants them to be okay, but he’s not worried about them so much as her. As much as he’s been trying to give her space, he also has to try to reach out.

“Buffy, if you're in- if you're in pain...or if you need anything...or if I can do anything for you...”

“You can't,” she says simply.

“Well, I haven't been to a hell dimension just of late, but I do know a thing or two about torment,” he replies lightly.

She sits on a box beside him and looks down at her hands. 

“I was happy. Wherever I was...I was happy. At peace.” He’s a bit shocked, but he waits, he can’t do anything else. “I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time...didn't mean anything...nothing had form, but I was still me, you know?” She glances quickly at him. “And I was warm and I was loved and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or any of it, really...but I think I was in heaven.”

It’s the last thing he expects her to say and also the most obvious. He never thought she went anywhere else until she came back. 

“And now I'm not,” she continues. “I was torn out of there. Pulled out by my friends. Everything here is...hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch. This is hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that...knowing what I've lost...” Then she stops and he knows she remembers he’s actually there. “I don’t want them to know. They can’t ever know.”

She stands up and she walks away and she’s a little bit taller, a little bit straighter, and he’s scared for her and she’s shocked him and he’s proud of her and she walks away into the sun and he can’t follow her; but, somehow, he thinks it’s better she goes on her own for the moment.


	4. Logan and the Kitten Poker Game

Logan finds it a bit ironic to be arguing about moving when he’s helping Veronica move. Still, they fight better than they do almost anything else and he doesn’t let himself think about anything else, because he’s still trying not to fall apart and weep like a little boy when he thinks about her not being just across town anymore.

See, he knows he’s pathetic, but he also knows Veronica Mars and he knows the fragility of their relationship and this is something he’s been worrying about ever since graduation. Veronica isn’t destined to live in Neptune forever, to be bound by the tragedies of their childhood. He can’t really say the same thing about himself.

At the moment he’s not really worried about the distance so much. Sunnydale’s a hell of a lot closer than Stanford or some of the other schools she could’ve gone to and he’s got just as much reason to visit her there, more even, than anywhere else. He’s worried about why she’s going there, what she’ll give up in doing so. He’s being unselfish, noble even, and he would just like her to admit that.

Which drives him right back to the irony in the situation.

So he hoists boxes and makes jokes with Mac about some of Veronica’s equipment and engages in manly strength contests with Wallace and trades just slightly barbed remarks with Weevil and only now…now that they’re driving alone, does he speak about it.

“If you start with me I’m tasering your ass,” she says.

He looks morally outraged as is his due.

“Would I ever?” he asks.

“You would, have, will,” she replied.

“You wouldn’t like me if I didn’t keep you on your toes,” he tells her.

“Sometimes I don’t like you anyway,” she mutters.

“I’ll ignore that like the beautiful human being I am,” he says sweetly. “Now…are you sure you have everything? Dorm information, registration information, my phone number?”

“I’ve had your phone number memorized since the fifth grade,” she says. “I may have blocked it out there for a few years, but I’m pretty sure the dating you brought it back into focus.”

“Ah, she still loves me,” he half sings, flipping on the radio.

“I do,” she says, firmly, but in that exasperated, Logan-why-can’t-you-be-sensible-and-not-argue-with-me-about-everything tone.

“I love you, too, my sweet,” he says, ignoring her tone and speeding up just to show her how much he doesn’t care how fast they get to the place where she’ll stay and he’ll leave.

“We’re really bad together,” she says, laughing.

“No, we’re epic together,” he says, repeating his own words that she’d repeated to him after he’d drunkenly forgotten them, back to her. “Lives ruined, blood shed. Epic.”

“You really think relationships should be that hard?” she says, the proper response.

“No one writes songs about the ones that come easy,” he says and then starts singing along, drowning out the voice on the radio.

After a minute she joins in and her own voice is far superior to his and he loves hearing it and for the next couple of hours they don’t fight anymore.

They pull into the Sunnydale campus and Logan stretches for a good five minutes before they start unloading. Veronica’s busy with the check in people and he spends his stretching time looking at his surroundings. Weevil had declined to help on this end of the move and Wallace and Mac won’t be coming until later when Keith can come with them so he’s got Veronica to himself for a bit, though Xander and Anya have promised to help later in the afternoon once they get off work.

“I’m all official,” she says, walking back over, and he pushes her sunglasses off her head back down her nose.

“I’m jumping with joy,” he says.

“Sore loser,” she says, adjusting her sunglasses.

He smirks at her and starts pulling boxes out of the Xterra.

“Did you tell them you were here?” he asks.

“The college?”

“The Scoobies,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“I left a message at the house. I don’t really have any cell phone numbers; they apparently only use disposable cells for emergencies,” Veronica says in a somewhat outraged tone.

“Poor deprived souls,” Logan says in sympathy.

“Yes, this is why I’m here. To educate them on the benefits of technology when it comes to slaying vampires,” she says cheerfully.

“Isn’t Willow supposed to be some big computer whiz according to Mac?” Logan asks.

“I think the magic’s been more her thing recently,” Veronica says as if she’s not so sure that’s a good thing.

“So I hear,” Logan remarks. “I guess when you’re busy raising people from the dead you don’t really think about the benefits of text messaging.”

They get to work unpacking and he’s sweating a little before they’re through.

“Let’s take a break,” Veronica says when there’s really not much more they can do before the next load comes.

“Walk?” he asks.

“Sounds good,” she replies and puts her hand in his as they stroll across the campus like college lovers and he’s laughing inside at the picture.

Logan’s actually impressed at the size of the campus. It’s a lot bigger than he would have thought for the small town. The buildings look new and he’s thinking maybe Veronica might have made a good choice now.

“Yonder,” she says and points ahead.

He looks and sees Buffy and Willow walking along, books under arm like good college students.

“Shall we sneak up on them?” he asks.

“Is that a good idea with Buffy’s…” Veronica trails off.

“What? Condition?” he says. “I think it might be just what she needs.”

“You’re more of an expert at trauma,” she says and he doesn’t really agree because they’re probably even, though his is more overt.

They move up behind Willow and Buffy slowly until they can just hear the conversation.

“You're not dumb. Just rusty,” Willow’s saying.

“Maybe I should ease back in with some non-taxing classes, like introduction to pies, or maybe advanced walking,” Buffy says mournfully. 

“Never was big on school myself,” Logan says and Buffy turns around with reflexes that still shock him.

“Logan,” she says warmly and he feels like he made the right call.

“You’re here!” Willow says.

“Moving in, taking a break,” Veronica says and there’re hugs all around.

“What’s the verdict on the campus?” Willow asks, spreading her hand like the whole thing is her own brain child.

“I like it,” Logan says firmly and Veronica looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “What?” he says. “I do.”

“Wishy-washy rich kids,” Buffy says and Logan has to smile at that.

“Never should’ve taken you under my wing,” he says and sighs.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Buffy says and he can tell she means it.

“Hey,” comes a voice from behind them and Logan turns to see Tara.

Tara joins them and gives her own hugs and welcomes and inquiries after Buffy’s first class back.

“She did fine! Sociology: not a big fave,” said Willow.

“No, look, it's fine. I just need to spend a little more time re-acclimating. You know, to get back into the swing of things,” said Buffy. 

They move on down the hall, some jerk bumping into Buffy, and then Logan notices she isn’t there anymore.

She’s way behind them looking confused and then runs to join them.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Nothing,” they all say, looking at each other.

Willow leaves for her next class and Veronica wants to walk with Tara and Buffy to their art class and when they get to the door Buffy isn’t with them anymore.

“Where’d she go now?” Logan asks.

“I don’t see her,” says Veronica.

“I’m gonna be late,” Tara says worriedly. “See if you can’t find her?”

“Will do,” says Veronica.

They wander around for an hour but don’t see her until they make their way back to the art class and find her and Tara standing there.

“Something’s going on,” Buffy tells them. “Something’s happening.”

They all exchange worried glances and Logan knows they’re all wondering the same thing. Is something going on or is this more post-death trauma stuff?

Veronica says that they’ll figure it out and Buffy nods.

“I have my next class,” Tara tells them and leaves.

“There’s a courtyard up ahead,” Buffy says. “I can tell you guys up there.”

So they walk there but when they sit down Buffy’s gone again. Then suddenly she’s there.

“Something was on me,” she says and explains the weird time thing.

Logan doesn’t get it, but then he’s still new at the supernatural and he might like it to stay that way. If he’s honest with himself that’s another reason why it bothers him that Veronica’s going to be at school here. She’ll become way more entrenched in the supernatural.

But Buffy’s obviously in trouble and Logan loves her like the big sister Trina never was and so he wants to help in any way he can.

Veronica’s cell buzzes and she flips it open.

“They’re here,” she says. “Dad couldn’t make it. Bail jumper.”

They all go back over to Veronica’s new dorm and greet Wallace and Mac. They’ve brought Veronica’s car with them, so they’re trying to park two cars, but they treat Buffy like a long lost friend because that’s what she is. Buffy clams down a little bit but exclaims over the good room Veronica’s gotten and then admits she has to get home because she’s starting work at Xander’s construction site the next morning.

Speaking of the devil Anya and Xander show up to help and Logan appreciates it since there’s quite a lot of stuff still left to do.

Buffy explains her problem to Xander and Anya and they look as perplexed about the ‘evil lint’ as Logan feels so that makes him feel better.

They work for a few more hours before ordering some pizza in and then Wallace and Mac head back to Neptune since they start their own classes the next day.

“You gonna be joining us?” Wallace asks, slapping Logan’s shoulder.

“I have made no decisions,” he says.

“You’re running out of time, brainhead,” Mac tells him.

“That’s not what daddy’s billions say,” he tells them, polishing his fingernails on his shirt and inspecting them rather carefully.

“You’re always gonna be an 09er no matter who you’re dating, aren’t you?” Wallace says, shaking his head.

“Duh, Mr. Basketball Scholarship,” Logan tells him.

There’s no animosity between them anymore, but there’s plenty of snark and that’s all Logan really requires in the people he hangs out with. That’s why he and Mac get along so well.

They leave, and so do Xander and Anya, and Logan lounges on Veronica’s newly made bed while she calls her dad. She’s lucked out because they told her she wouldn’t be getting a roommate until next semester. He thinks enrollment must be down due to demon attacks or something. But he’s lucked out, too, because now he’s gonna stay in his girlfriend’s room until he feels like leaving or she kicks him out.

“Shall we christen the place?” he asks her when she hangs up, waggling his eyebrows.

Veronica pretends to consider a moment before locking the door and sauntering over to the bed.

“I think I’m supposed to put a sock on the door,” she says, stripping her shirt off.

“That is the time honored tradition,” he says, avidly watching her every movement.

“I’ve always bucked the traditions,” she says, bending over him, just brushing him with her chest as she kisses him.

He closes his eyes and concentrates on her closeness. It’s something that never fails to excite and awe him, the way she feels when they’re together and how she makes him completely fall apart and then puts him back together.

Their kisses are deep and slow because they’re in no hurry and he runs his hands over her stomach, inching towards her waist, and every touch is a bit of heaven on earth.

The next morning Veronica has orientation before her first class and she leaves for it, book bag in hand, while Logan lies in her bed and idly thinks he might like to be a kept man.

About halfway through his morning when he’s only just decided to get up he gets a call from Buffy who’s gotten fired from her construction site job due to excessive demon slayage.

“Heavy blow,” he says. “It’s like you’re not even saving the world or anything.”

“Somebody’s after me,” she says heavily and he flinches at the dull deadness in her tone.

“Anything I can do?” he asks, though he has no idea what he can contribute to the problem.

“Right now I have to go in to the Magic Box where Anya has graciously offered to let me work on a trial period provided I don’t do any damages to her bottom line,” Buffy says wryly.

“It’s a cinch.” Logan laughs. 

“Well, later we might have a research party if you want to truly become a part of the circle here,” Buffy offers.

“I’m not the one moving here,” he reminds her.

“For now,” she says and Logan has to remind himself that she knows him pretty well.

“You think you’re so smart for a dead girl,” he tells her because he knows that he’s gonna be the one to help make her pain laughable and, therefore, bearable.

“I’m smart for any kind of girl. A college drop-out, financially-strapped, demon-fighting kind of girl,” she replies.

“That’s a bit of a mouthful. I think I’ll just call you Buffy.” She laughs. “Call us later, Veronica’s through at six.”

“You got it,” Buffy says and hangs up.

Logan spends the rest of his day unpacking stuff for Veronica and surfing the web and trying not to think about where he’s going to go to school or what he’s going to do with his life.

When Veronica gets back they have dinner and then Buffy and Spike show up on their doorstep, Buffy with a whiskey bottle and the potential for a major hangover.

“What did you do to her?” Veronica asks, horrified glare in place.

Ever the one to point fingers first and ask questions later, his Veronica.

“She did it to herself,” Spike defends. “And maybe she needs a little wild time. Puts things into perspective. ‘Sides, we’re gonna find out who’s after her.”

“Did something else happen?” Veronica asks, already in the know about the construction site attack.

“Mummy hand,” Buffy says solemnly.

They glance at each other.

“Time loop at the Magic Box,” Spike supplies helpfully except that it doesn’t really help Logan out at all. “We’re hitting the demon world. Wanna come?”

Logan’s eyes look a little large, he thinks. Veronica hesitates a moment but then looks to him and at Buffy and nods.

He sighs and nods, too. Might as well know what she’s getting herself into.

Later, they’re at a demon bar and, while Logan’s faced vampires before, even befriended one; he’s never seen the kinds of things that are around him now. It makes him incredibly nervous and he’s pretty sure they can all smell it.

“I’ll take a PCHer any day,” he mutters to Veronica. She shows him the taser she’s got clasped in her fist. “That’s my girl,” he says proudly.

They head for the back room where Spike does his business and there’s a big stink over him bringing in three humans.

Buffy’s a little belligerent when she finds out he intends to play poker.

He pulls them aside and cautions them to play it cool.

“You wanna play, that's fine. Okay? I am sticking to the original plan. Which one do I kill for information?” Buffy says belligerently.

“Listen, these guys talk while they play. We'll get more information out of their mouths than out of gaping holes in their corpses,” insists Spike.

Logan’s liking the gaping holes version of the night, but Buffy acquiesces drunkenly and sits down.

Spike sits down at the table and Veronica and Logan pull up stools beside Buffy and Logan takes a long swig of her whiskey. He doesn’t know what demons do while playing poker, but he wants a little fire in his blood before watching.

Veronica stiffens beside him.

“You play for kittens?” she asks.

Spike ignores her.

“So, who's gonna advance me a tiny tabby, get me started?”

The game progresses smoothly from there though Veronica stops speaking to Spike and Buffy’s getting so drunk that Logan wishes he could get the bottle away from her. She’s still ridiculously strong though and he’s not having any luck.

Then one of the demons accuses Spike of cheating and Buffy loses it a little bit. Logan watches in concern.

“Buffy, maybe we should go,” Veronica tells her.

Buffy does just that but she’s hitting demons and stumbling and Spike is running after her, looking worried. 

“What's wrong, love?” he asks.

“What's wrong? You were gonna help me! You-you were gonna beat heads and-and-and fix my life! But you're completely lame. Tonight sucks! And-and look at me. Look at-look at stupid Buffy! Too dumb for college, and-and-and freak Buffy, too strong for construction work. And-and my job at the magic shop? I was bored to tears even before the hour that wouldn't end! And the only person I can even stand to be around is a...neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker.”

Logan watches the expression on Spike’s face go from concerned to embarrassed to angry to pensive to sad to happy to crushed all in about the space of thirty seconds.

“The man’s an emotion machine,” he says under his breath.

Veronica’s obviously still miffed about the kittens because she puts her arms around Buffy who’s still yelling at Spike who’s apparently decided to ignore most of the things said to him.

“Oh, you saw the cheating, did you?” he asks.

“Also? I think you're drunk,” Buffy says, winding down.

Veronica tries to get Buffy back to the car, but the Slayer isn’t having any of it. She’s stumbling all over the alley and Logan aches a little inside because he knows the feeling.

“Give her some room,” he tells Veronica quietly and her face grows hard and she lets go.

There’s a sudden blaring of the _Star Wars_ theme and Logan wonders how much he actually drank.

“I know that van,” Buffy says and hiccoughs.

She stumbles closer and then a demon appears out of the mist. Tall, muscular, wings, horns, and a loincloth. Logan doesn’t know whether to laugh or run away. Then it sort of roars and he does laugh and some of that is definitely the alcohol.

“You have discovered me! But do not try to defeat me, for I have been testing you and I know your weaknesses. Ha ha ha!” the demons laughs like a pre-adolescent male.

The van behind him starts to drive away and both the demon and Logan get distracted from the cliché villain speech.

Buffy follows the demon and starts to beat him up, rather drunkenly. Her hits are sloppy and her kicks erratic, landing her on her ass. Spike goes to help her only she’s waving him away.

“I'm okay! I'm fine! Get off me,” Buffy says.

Spike backs away and Buffy lurches to her feet but the demon’s already running away. 

“I am well struck. I call on the misty portal to my demon dimension, where I will lay my head and gently die.”

The demon throws something to the ground and there’s a shower of smoke and sparks blinding them all. Logan starts to cough and choke.

“Anybody else think there’s something incredibly screwed up about that?” Logan asks.

“Gotta love it, you know,” Buffy says, smiling at Spike and Logan’s confused because now she looks like she wants to kiss him. “It makes you feel all powerful. Strong. Kinda sick.”

Buffy keels over and vomits all over the alley and Logan winces.

“We’ll get her home,” Veronica says, glaring at Spike. “And you and I will have a talk later.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Spike says, sounding broken, and Veronica’s face softens.

“I know this is hard,” she tells him. “But she needs you to do more than this. She needs something only you can give her.”

“I don’t think she needs me,” he says and looks like he wants to say something else but doesn’t. “Just watch out for her, Private Eye.”

“Thanks for the education,” Logan tells him and wishes he didn’t have so much in common with a half-drunk vampire.

They get Buffy home okay and sneak her in and Logan leaves his best hangover remedy for her.

They don’t re-christen Veronica’s room when they get back and Logan lies awake most of the night, thinking and planning his next move.

It’s a hard decision, but the right one, he thinks.

“I’m gonna head home,” he tells Veronica the next morning.

“Why?” she asks.

“I don’t live here, my darling, in case you forgot,” he says, trying to keep it light.

She rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, but I thought I was gonna have to kick you out in a week,” she says.

“I was banking on two,” he says. “It’s time though. I’ll see you soon. But I gotta figure some stuff out.”

“Like?” she asks, looking worried.

“Like where I want to be,” he admits.

“You’re so hot when you’re all mature,” she tells him and the kiss she gives him makes him want to drag her back to bed and forget his new plans but he doesn’t.

He packs his stuff and makes sure Veronica’s heard from a hung-over Buffy before he drives back to Neptune.

It’s really hard, leaving her, but he does it because he knows she needs it and maybe he does, too. They’re connected in a way that awes him and frightens her, but they’re also two individual people and he’s gotta figure himself out before he can hope to be what she needs.

His plan is to find a college he wants. After that, he plans on figuring out what he wants to do. He doesn’t regret banking all his plans on Veronica because he’s convinced she’s his future, but he needs to give her the space to find that out on her own. 

Buffy’s little display of the night before reminded him of people in pain and what they do to the people who love them. He’s been that person and he’s been on the receiving end and it’s hurtful both ways. He doesn’t want either to happen to him with Veronica. 

So he goes home.


	5. Buffy and the Engagement Announcement

Buffy’s never drinking ever again. Either that or she’s gonna drink all the time until she’s used to it. She hasn’t decided yet, but the memory of her morning after is leaning her towards the former. She clings to making decisions like that because they lead her away from the more important ones. What job to find, how to be a big sister, should she go back to school…and the two big ones: should she continue her relationship with Spike and how the hell does she live in this world? The last one is more of an existential question than a decision, but it might as well be a decision since it dominates almost everything in her life.

The assault on her senses has dulled a bit, but sometimes she thinks she prefers that pain to this emptiness. This world is nothing. She thinks she can understand some bits of Christianity now because how could anyone possibly pick this world over wherever Buffy’s been ripped out of? She thinks of death and it’s not terror she feels, it’s peace. That scares her because she thinks it should scare her and because she knows it would scare the people who love her. But the death wish Spike informed her she has is rearing its head a lot more these days.

She’s never backed down from anything and she doesn’t plan on starting now. But…life is killing her in a way that death didn’t accomplish. Everything is too hard, overwhelming to the point of panic, and she can’t bring herself to care about anything she’s supposed to. Nothing compares to the heaven she’s experienced and it’s like she told Spike, it was for longer than one summer. She has trouble remembering things like people she went to high school with or when Dawn’s birthday is. 

But she can’t just live like she feels because this world isn’t built for that. It’s not built for anything other than working and playing and being second best. But her friends don’t know that, Dawn doesn’t know that. So she has to set aside everything for them, again. Always again. Never rest and peace and grace, always fighting, clawing, struggling. She’s sick to death of it and if only it were that literal.

Still, she loves them. She can remember love, that’s the easiest thing to remember. She feels the connection between her to these people and that’s why she tries. She tries so hard, nobody knows how hard. She has to keep her dreadful secret and live and work and be Buffy. Slaying, puns, fashion, and all. Because she doesn’t want to be what she was before she died, but she wants to be that more than she wants to be whatever she is now.

Only Spike understands that. The others are grasping on the edges of her vision, clinging and needing and she wants to grab hold of them and brush them away; she wants it to stop. He’s simply there, the exact right distance, and sometimes he gets her drunk and sometimes he tells her about his own guilt. But mostly he’s just always right and it’s so wrong that he is the one who’s right.

She can’t remember the two of them most of all and that’s sad whenever she looks at him. She knows that he’s been her right arm and support for so long and she knows how much he loves her and she knows what he did for her and for her family. She wants to give in to the feeling of comfort he can provide and she would like nothing better than to let him take away the emptiness for a while. But she can’t.

If she does it won’t be for him because all her giving is going in a-not-Spike direction and that’s so not fair, but apparently that’s life. She needs right now, she drains joy and love out of the atmosphere, she has nothing to give him and what she does remember is that she promised him she wouldn’t do that anymore.

So they just are and she knows he’s waiting, but at least he’s waiting and not demanding. He’s the strong helpmate on her patrols and he’s the one who makes Dawn go to bed at night and he’s the one who holds her dreadful secret and that much she can give him.

Veronica’s easier than Willow or Xander right now. She’s not perfect and she doesn’t understand and she wants something, too, they all want something; but she doesn’t demand either and Veronica’s never conspired to rip someone out of heaven.

So Buffy agrees to the lunch date and meets her on campus and manages to actually enjoy herself a little bit as they don’t really talk about anything serious unless it’s on Veronica’s side of the friendship.

“You like your classes so far?” Buffy asks.

“I do,” Veronica replies. “I wasn’t really thinking about it, but college is kind of the life, you know? I miss some people, but I don’t miss Neptune at all.”

“I think I felt like that once.” Buffy sips at her water.

Veronica’s face goes all sympathetic and Buffy changes the subject to the Magic Box and how Anya needs help with the holiday rush.

“Holiday?” asks Veronica.

“Halloween. It’s a big thing for non-serious magic users or wannabes. They tend to get a little overzealous and storm the place,” Buffy says wryly.

“I guess Halloween is probably your big night,” Veronica guesses.

“Not so much actually,” Buffy says. “Real monsters and beasties tend to keep close to the crypts on Halloween. Sort of a protest almost.”

“Cool, so like a night off for you then?” Veronica says.

“Not the last couple of years. There was the time where we all got turned into our costumes or the time when we got trapped in a real haunted house by the demon of fear.”

Veronica shakes her head and Buffy is proud of herself because she has to work hard to bring those memories back to life.

“So should I be worried?” Veronica asks.

“Probably not. We’ll all work to death and then eat candy, I might patrol later,” Buffy says, shrugging.

“I’ll come by and help, still new in town and all. Not like I’ve been invited to a lot of parties,” Veronica says.

“Well, you moved to a town with pre-packaged friends,” Buffy says, smiling at her.

“I am thankful for that,” Veronica replies. “Life is really hard and change is difficult.”

“Tell me about it,” Buffy says. “Try crawling out of your grave after…”

Veronica waits, almost as patiently as Spike, but not quite, which is ironic, in and of itself.

“After?” she prompts.

“Never mind,” Buffy says because she’s not ready to give that secret up again, but she can’t just say nothing either. “I have changes going on. And that changes things. So how can I just live with that? Does everything pop back to normal like putting the cork back in the champagne or do you not have a relationship with a vampire anymore?”

Veronica chuckles a little and Buffy does, too because it really is too ridiculous.

“I take it you’re worried about being with Spike?” Veronica says.

“However did you guess?” Buffy says.

“People say I’ve got mean detect-ing skills and they’re right,” Veronica replies.

“So what can you detect about the situation?” Buffy asks.

“Not a whole lot without some evidence. What’s happening?” Veronica asks.

“I’m newly undead and he’s long undead and that worked before but it wasn’t supposed to work before and now he’s doing better than I am which is wholly unfair due to previously stated undead-and-not-supposed-to-work rules and yet he’s the only person I can even think about talking to.” Buffy sighs. “Almost, seeing as how I’m currently speaking to you.”

Veronica smiles and leans back in her chair.

“So you don’t want to pick up where you left off?”

“Shouldn’t I?” Buffy asks. “I mean, isn’t this is the part of the story where the heroine miraculously comes back to life and the hero gets the girl past all hope?”

“No, this is the part of the story where the heroine dies to save the world and gets brought back to life and is understandably confused about life and all her relationships, not just the one with the hero,” Veronica says gently.

“Typical storybook romance, huh?” Buffy says, hiding her face behind a drink of water.

“Perhaps,” Veronica replies. “On the other hand, you’re both rather prone to blindsiding yourselves and being really stubborn.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You want the Veronica Mars consult, you get the full deal. All I gotta say since you’re both particular friends of mine is that going slow right now is nothing to be ashamed of or worried about. It’s gonna suck for a while. But Logan always likes to give me smart aleck remarks about time healing wounds and things like that. Besides, your relationship was real and that’s not something that’s going to go away just cause a little death entered the picture.”

“You’re laying a whole lot of common sense on a taxed out brain,” Buffy says, but she feels like fifty thousand light bulbs just went on over her head.

“Sorry. Logan’s rubbing off on me, but don’t tell him that.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Buffy said, smiling wanly. “A lot of secrets are. I’m like a bank vault full.”

“From Spike?” Veronica asks.

“Not all, but I haven’t talked about any of this with him,” Buffy admits.

“Last bit of advice before you kick my ass?” Veronica says lightly. “Talk to him. Cause you’re talking to the queen of keeping things from her boyfriends and having it blow up in her face. Communication is key and all that other healthy relationship crap.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Buffy says because she honestly can’t handle any more wisdom and advice right now even though she’s thankful for what she got. “Thanks.”

“No worries. Now I gotta get to class. I hear they frown on you being late.”

“Bye,” Buffy says and is glad Veronica is leaving because then she won’t have to pretend to eat anymore.

Her appetite is what would be called nil these days.

But she’s got Slayer strength to make up for that. So she goes and she works her tail off for Anya because it’s better than sitting at home and doing Angel imitation brooding.

She’s not thinking about Spike at all so when Anya tells her to go down and get some mandrake root she jumps a mile when she sees him and they both shift awkwardly for a moment as they have been doing the avoiding thing since the kitten poker incident. 

“Bell. Neck. Look into it,” she says.

“Come with a nice leather collar, does it?” he asks, looking amused and she changes the subject in a hurry.

“What are you doing lurking down here?”

“Came through the tunnels,” he says, holding up some tangled mess of what looks like poison ivy. “Running low on burba weed. Stir it in with the blood. Makes it all hot and spicy.” She makes a face because the last thing she needs is a reminder that her technically-labeled-as-such boyfriend drinks blood. “I thought you'd had it to the brim with customer disservice,” he says, probably correctly interrupting her look.

Stupid, perceptive vampire.

“One time deal to help out,” she says. “And I mean straight time. No loop-de-loop-mummy-hand-repeat-o-vision.” Then they’re back to the awkward so Buffy looks around wildly. “Where's the mandrake root?” 

“Um...here,” he says, looking around and getting one down. “Only three to a jar.” He gives one to her. “Tend to go a bit wonky if you cram them too close.”

“Thanks,” she says.

He shifts a bit on his feet and then apparently makes up his mind.

“Feel like a bit of the rough and tumble?”

All coherent thought flies out of her head in one rush. How to even answer that. Does she want to…well, yeah, she remembers that bit just fine. But there’s so much more to them than that.

“What?” she asks.

He raises an eyebrow like she’s stupid. Well, maybe she came back stupid. She certainly feels stupid anyway.

“Patrolling? Hello?” he says.

Relief she’s prepared for, disappointment she’s not. But she still can’t. She just can’t talk to him.

“Oh. Uh, I...should stay. Maybe tomorrow,” she offers weakly. 

He nods and she can see the disappointment but only because she’s looking for it. Still, it’s awkward and weird and uncomfortable and he leaves, mumbling something about the _Great Pumpkin_. She shakes her head and sighs.

“So much easier to talk to when he wanted to kill me,” she tells herself and heads back upstairs to the chaos.

It’s a long night. Very long and it’s not even night yet. Still the never-ending line of customers slows to nothing eventually and clean up begins. Veronica looks exhausted and Buffy doesn’t blame her. It gets a little awkward when Willow tries to use magic to clean up and Giles and Tara nearly have a conniption fit, but then Anya starts counting the money and Xander starts ignoring what Buffy’s saying about his lame pirate costume.

Anya’s obviously very pleased by the night and by Veronica’s help and even offers her a job which Veronica accepts. Now Anya is teaching her money dance to Dawn and Dawn’s having fun for which Buffy is grateful.

“You do this every night?” Dawn asks.

“Every time I close out the cash register. The dance of capitalist superiority,” Anya says happily.

Xander is watching them dancing like he’s on a desert island and sees a rescue ship and Buffy’s a little confused. 

“I'm gonna marry that girl,” he says softly.

“What?” Buffy asks. “She's fifteen and my sister, so don't ev- oh.”

She’s a little slow on the uptake, see above re: mentioned stupidity, but she’s been dead so…

Xander stands up and walks over to the counter and puts his arm around Anya’s shoulders.

“Hey, everybody. Can I, um, uh...there's something Anya and I...wanna tell you.” 

“Now?” Anya asks him.

“Now,” he tells her firmly then turns to everyone else. “We're getting married.”

Congratulations erupt from the masses though Buffy notices Willow looks less than pleased and that worries her a bit.

“I thought you were waiting for the right moment,” Anya says, looking up at Xander and he gazes down at her with such an expression of fondness on his face that Buffy feels guilty for having noticed. 

“I did.”

Then there was a lot of kiss-age and Buffy tries not to feel jealous or surreal about the whole thing.

Anya laughs and throws her money away which says more than any words could have but she does anyway. 

“I mean, I am the luckiest ex-demon in the world. I mean, to be able to find the one person in all dimensions that I was meant to be with, and have everything work out exactly as I dreamed. I mean, how often does the universe allow that to happen?” Anya asks.

While the phrase ‘I mean’ will never be usable again, Buffy wonders that herself because as far as she’s concerned the only thing that has ever gone right for her was dying and even that had been messed up eventually. Still, she can’t deny the love her friends are sharing and she misses that. She doesn’t know if it’s ever been truly real and right for her, star-crossed vampire/Slayer loving aside, but it’s something to think about while she’s messing around trying to figure out what to do about Spike.

So they throw a party at her house and she vaguely wonders why they couldn’t do it at the actually-engaged-couple’s house but doesn’t for long. It’s all earthly wonderful and a little bit like home and she can almost say she’s happy.

Then she and Dawn go into the kitchen for more dip and Tara and Willow are arguing about something strongly and she feels bad again because love isn’t universally fair. She isn’t so involved in her own pain that she’s ignorant of the fact that ever since she’s been back Tara has been avoiding Willow and sleeping in Dawn’s room or at friend’s houses or at Veronica’s and it makes her feel guilty since it’s her being brought back that started it.

She and Dawn stand there while Tara brushes past them and Willow doesn’t speak about it and Buffy doesn’t feel right forcing confidences when it’s technically her fault and she’s not exactly sharing with Willow right now anyway.

Then Dawn goes over to Janice’s and Buffy has the feeling she should be thinking something about that but she doesn’t.

Instead she just hangs out and calms Xander down when he starts to freak out over wedding plans which Anya is delving into with gusto and she inwardly has time to sigh over the stereotypical nature he’s displaying, but he’s Xander and he’s her best friend and she can’t quite mind all the way.

But she does want to get away from all of it herself and she’s wished since she talked to him that she took Spike up on his offer to patrol so she goes to patrol herself and finds the typical ambulances and police cars one expects to see in Sunnydale but the situation looks very vamp-like to her so she rushes to find Spike. Any excuse really.

But when she finds him he informs her that Dawn’s gone missing while playing rebellious teenager with Janice and Buffy groans at her own stupidity. Still…that’s something and Spike’s worry is obvious and that makes her feel better. It reminds her of when Dawn found out she was the Key and Spike had helped look for her and had been so…Spike…but so there for her.

She can’t think about this now, she has nothing but thoughts in her head, and she’s always been an action girl.

They head toward the parks and the cemeteries and then there’s shouting and that’s when her blood starts to burn and she’s feeling something.

It helps that Giles and Dawn are there, surrounded by vampires and Dawn was apparently parking with a vampire. She ignores her own head’s attempts to make jokes about family similarities and yells. It’s good to yell.

“Were you parking! With a vamp?” Buffy asks.

“I-I didn't know he was dead!” Dawn protests.

“Living dead,” the vamp in question points out.

“Shut up!” Dawn tells him.

“How could you not know?” Buffy demands.

Giles mumbles something about Angel but Buffy ignores him.

“I just met him!” Dawn protests.

“Oh! Oh, so you were parking in the woods with a boy you just met,” Buffy says.

“We've seen each other at parties,” he tries to talk again and Buffy wonders why he doesn’t get that this is sister-fighting time. 

Slaying afterwards.

“Shut up.” She turns back to Dawn. “I don't believe you.” 

“Oh, like you've never fallen for a vampire?” Dawn accuses.

Buffy avoids looking at Spike.

“That was different,” Buffy says lamely.

“It always is when it's you,” Dawn says.

The various other vampires are apparently getting restless.

“Uh, excuse me, can we fight now?” a random one says.

Buffy sighs and looks around.

“Hey, didn't anyone come here to just make out?” A couple in the back raise their hands and Buffy rolls her eyes. “Aw, that's sweet. You run.” They do and Buffy feels her blood rise again. “You scream,” she tells the vampires.

She needs to slay something. She does. It’s glorious. The fights and the brawls she’s had haven’t been this good since she got back, that first night that’s still a blur, notwithstanding. Maybe she’s turned some corner or maybe the heaven vision is wearing off, either way she wants to keep fighting. She’s thinking about nothing else. Giles is shouting something and Spike’s lecturing the vamps he’s dusting about properly staying in on Halloween and Dawn’s…

Dawn.

Buffy’s haze breaks and it’s heartbreaking but she thinks about her sister and finds her shaking after dusting the vampire.

Buffy knows this is serious and knows she should say something, but she feels like everything she had to give was just given to the vampires and that’s not fair, but that’s what she feels like.

So she takes Dawn home where Willow and Tara seem to be magically speaking again. Veronica goes home after she finds out Dawn’s all right and Giles tells Buffy that something has to be done about Dawn.

She agrees, even if she doesn’t know what she can do about it. Without even really thinking about it she assumes he’ll take care of it and starts to walk out, but he stops her and makes her go with him instead and when they get in there Dawn’s sobbing into Spike’s arms and she feels both left off the hook and that she’s a terrible human being and sister.

“Is this wise?” Giles asks and she looks at him a moment.

“Wasn’t he the one taking care of her while I was gone?” she says, and leaves.

On one hand she’s tired and on the other she wants to fight something again. On one hand she wants to help heal the trauma her sister’s been through and on the other she wants to shake her for being so careless. On one hand she wants to yell at Giles and tell him he shouldn’t have left and on the other she wants to beg him never to leave her again. On one hand she’s happy for Xander and Anya and their happiness and on the other she wants to hate them for being happy when she isn’t. On one hand she wants to jump Spike’s bones and never leave his bed and on the other she just wants to never have to deal with him again.

Which hand’s stronger, she doesn’t know. Right now any version of Spike and bed sounds good but she doesn’t have the strength to go down and speak to him again before he leaves. She can feel it when he goes.


	6. Veronica and the Musical Theatre Demon

Veronica’s a lot more used to cemeteries then she used to be. It happens when slaying vampires becomes a regular part of life, she reflects. But she hasn’t been in one for a while. Not since the funeral of the silent girl currently walking beside her, in fact. Which isn’t a bad thing because Veronica’s got a lot to deal with right now. She’s moved to a new town, doing school full time, trying to handle a long-distance relationship, and she’s working part time at a magic supply store for a very exacting store owner.

She doesn’t have time for patrolling, not even if she were a Slayer again. It makes her feel more sympathetic toward Buffy. But then she’s always been able to feel sympathetic toward her - it came with the body-swapping thing.

Still, she’s glad they’re doing this now. She relishes the smooth feel of the stake in her hand and the adrenaline that comes from hunting vampires and she misses it just a little bit. She’s an active person, but she’s usually sneaky. She deals in espionage and hiding in the shadows, uncovering lies and crime, she’s patient and ingenious. But there’s nothing quite like landing a roundhouse kick on a demon, she thinks.

Patrol’s quiet tonight and she doesn’t have to wonder why she’s out here with Buffy instead of Spike. Buffy is avoiding her boyfriend or vampire lover or whatever the two of them are these days. The whole coming back from the dead thing confuses Veronica, too.

She’s got her own problems. It’s not quite as easy being away from Logan as she thought it would be. He’d been so close that she thought time away would do them good. Now she just wants to hold his hand or feel his lips or get into an argument or something. He’s not obliging her. She can tell he’s giving her space or something and that doesn’t make sense. Not with their track record and his inability to let go. She doesn’t like being the one unsure about the relationship. She doesn’t like the knowledge that she might just not ever be able to be without him. That’s not what college is supposed to be about – she's supposed to be exploring new things and places and herself. Now it seems to be about something else and it bothers her and she doesn’t even know what it is.

So slaying vampires is good. Very good.

She gets a little bit separated from Buffy and when she comes back around the corner she stops dead at the crazy tableau laid out in front of her.

The demons are…singing. So is Buffy. There is choreography and everything.

_I’ve been making shows at trading blows, just hoping no one knows that I’ve been going through the motions, walking through the part. Nothing seems to penetrate my heart._

Veronica can’t do anything but stand there and watch as Buffy slays demons and rescues male models with ridiculously good-looking hair and sings her heart out without any apparent expression of emotion at all. 

_And I just want to be…alive._

The spectacular dust cloud spreads out on the wind around Buffy’s form and Veronica doesn’t know whether to start clapping or cry.

“Um…” she says and she’s never been so tongue-tied.

Buffy whirls around and looks just as surprised as Veronica feels.

“Did I just…” Buffy asks.

“Sing like a 1930s starlet? Oh yes,” Veronica replies.

“I don’t suppose you know why?” Buffy says.

“You’re the Slayer,” Veronica says.

“So they tell me,” Buffy mutters. “This sounds like a job for Giles and research books. Uh, let’s just keep this to ourselves for a while, shall we? Like always. Like not talk about subject of said singing.”

“It’s okay to not be okay,” Veronica says, avoiding Buffy’s eyes. 

She really doesn’t like not knowing what to say.

“In all fairness,” Buffy says, “I’m not okay with being okay with not being okay.”

“Okay…” Veronica says. “I can get that.”

“Then we’ll just not talk about it?” Buffy persists.

“If that’s what you want. But I’m still curious as to why it was in song,” Veronica says.

“Get in the chorus line,” Buffy says, and they chuckle a little.

Laughter is good, too.

Veronica still goes to bed that night with a sinking feeling which is only augmented when they go to the Magic Box next day and everyone else admits to singing as well. She hasn’t sung and that feels a little bit excluding but, then again, she doesn’t really want to sing either.

It’s the strangest thing though, watching them all sing about research.

 _I’ve got a theory that it’s a demon. A dancing demon…uh, something isn’t right there._ begins Giles of all people and, wow, does he have a voice on him.

Then there’s Anya’s little musical tirade about bunnies.

The amusing part ends when she watches Buffy deliberately sing in circles around the concerned queries of her friends.

_What can’t we face if we’re together? What’s in this place that we can’t weather? There’s nothing we can’t face..._

Except for bunnies again.

Veronica’s spooked. She wants to go back to her dorm and lock the doors until this just goes away. Apparently you can control it a little bit if you’re the Slayer but Veronica doesn’t want to take any chances and doesn’t even listen to the radio on her way back to school.

She’s a bit tired from her late night especially since she does a lot of homework once she gets back so she crawls into bed as soon as she can.

She blames her unconscious state for why she picks up her phone when it rings.

“Hung over already?” Logan asks.

“Nap,” she replies, looking at the clock.

She has a class in an hour and she’s thinking about skipping it for some reason that she can’t think of at this particular moment.

“Sorry I woke you,” Logan says.

“It’s okay, I got a class anyway,” Veronica replies, still hazy.

“That one professor still being a jerk?” Logan asks.

“I gotta have one, right?” she says, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

“I could probably buy him off or something,” Logan offers.

“Great, Veronica Mars: expelled for bribery.”

“Logan Echolls: jailed for bribery,” he retorts.

“Well, you’ll probably feel at home,” she says sweetly.

“So long as I get conjugal visits,” he says and she misses him suddenly with such a fire in her chest that it surprises her.

“I miss you,” she says and she doesn’t even realize she’s singing now.

_Your beastly car, your snarky quips, your built in bar, your tongue and lips._

“Is this some new form of phone sex?” he asks, sounding bewildered.

She can’t stop herself.

_How do we survive when we’ve been pulled apart? It seems like all I’m gonna do is finally break your heart._

“So no on the phone sex then,” he says and she can just picture his face, worried, distracted, confused, and angry.

She goes on and on. She seriously can’t stop. All she does is sing about how much she misses him and doesn’t want to hurt him but doesn’t see how their relationship can last. It’s like that nightmare where you’re naked on stage and you’re late for a test and being chased and getting pulled over and you can’t ever stop yourself or help yourself or do anything other than be in that dream.

It’s a rather nice end, she does have to say. It had started out more as a ballad, but she swears there was an electric violin in there somewhere close to the end and her own voice killed on those high notes in the middle. She’s still absolutely horrified at what she’s done, but at least she did it with style.

“So there’s some sort of singing plague in Sunnydale right now,” she says awkwardly once she’s confirmed that he is still, in fact, on the phone.

“Plague?” he repeats.

“Okay, Buffy and I were in the cemetery last night and she suddenly burst into song. Then everyone else did it in Magic Box. Now I’ve done it.”

“I guess you’re researching about what caused this phenomenon?” he queries.

“Uh huh,” she says awkwardly.

“And you chose to sing about how we’re not going to be together anymore?” he says, returning to the point she wants him to avoid.

“I don’t think you get to choose,” she says, ignoring his real question.

“So you really feel that way?” he persists.

“Of course I do,” she says, giving in. “What percentage of high school relationships last into college? The odds are not in our favor.”

“That’s never stopped you from doing something before,” he says.

“I don’t always get what I want,” she says quietly.

“But you usually really fight for it,” he says hotly.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” she shoots back.

“Uh, no, actually, you’re not,” he says.

“That’s really classy,” she says.

“I don’t need class, I’ve got money,” he says sarcastically, going for the point that always annoys her the most, and she glares at him ineffectually through the phone.

“You know the arrogant jackass routine isn’t going to make this any easier,” Veronica says wearily.

“Neither is the cold feet, non-committal routine,” he says.

“I want to work on this, it’s hard, but instead of letting me communicate my concerns to you and us working on it together, you’re just jumping to conclusions and letting your own insecurities cloud your judgment,” Veronica says, rubbing her temple.

Dead silence on the line and either she’s alienated him forever or she’s really struck home. She’s hoping for the latter.

“You’ve got a lovely voice,” he says finally.

“…Thanks.”

“Did you know my phone has a new recording feature?” he asks casually.

Her eyes shoot wide open.

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” he says smugly.

“You delete that right now,” she demands.

“I think I need to listen to what you said again,” he says sweetly.

“And reevaluate?” she asks.

“Something to that effect,” he says.

“Then you can keep it. But then it’s getting deleted forever and I will get Mac to hack into your phone or get Willow to turn you into something nasty, but it is getting deleted.”

“Yes, boss,” he says sarcastically and hangs up the phone and she can’t really blame him.

She puts her head in her hands and wishes so much for something…anything other than this.

She’s not sure what just happened. Did she just irreparably damage their relationship? She’s going to kill whatever is causing this singing thing. Too much honesty is not a good thing.

Spike agrees with her later that night when she joins him outside the Magic Box.

“You get caught in the Broadway net, too?” he asks.

“Big time. Laid out in the hot sun and gutted,” she replied.

“Practically dusted over here.”

“Was it Buffy you sang to?” Veronica asks in sympathy.

“Who else? Started blathering on about wanting to rest in peace and would she just make up her bloody mind already and something about telling her secrets to a dead man.”

“Ouch,” says Veronica.

“You?” Spike asks.

“Oh, the usual…’I miss you so much but I don’t know how we can make it when we’re so far apart.’ ”

“We’re in for it now, Private Eye.”

“Tell me about it,” Veronica replies.

“I tried so bloody hard not to press her, to let her heal up naturally. Let her come to me if she wants it. Then I go and bollocks the whole thing up.”

“It’s a musical compulsion,” Veronica offers.

“Truth’s a bitch, that’s why I use it,” Spike says with a glint in his eye.

“I guess you are really evil,” Veronica indulges him.

“To the core, pet.”

He doesn’t convince her, but that’s okay because she’d rather be friends with an evil vampire than some of the humans she’s known. Like Madison.

Either way, there’s a new kinship between them and their current states of lyrically-induced unhappiness.

“Where’s Buffy tonight?” Veronica asks.

“Training. Thought I’d scout around for some info,” Spike replies.

“I got a shift in a minute,” Veronica says.

“Just don’t get Demon-girl all started up about what genre you’ve been singing. Gave me a bloody headache.”

“Got it,” she replies.

He leaves and she goes inside where she bumps into Tara just coming out of the restricted section, singing, and looking upset.

Veronica looks around in surprise. Giles is singing, too, and Buffy and Willow are standing up by the register not even noticing.

_You know I've been through hell. Willow, don’t you see? There’ll be nothing left of me._

_Believe me I don't want to go. And it'll grieve me cause I love you so, but we both know._

_I’m just standing in the way._

_I just wish I could stay. Wish I could stay. Wish I could stay._

“Are you okay?” she asks Tara when the other girl’s notes fade away, taking a moment to really appreciate her vocal talents.

“Willow- she did a spell,” Tara says.

“What kind of spell?” Veronica asks, worried.

“To make me forget. I was just home and-and Dawn told me we’d been fighting and I knew the resurrection spell made me worried, but she said we were yelling and I didn’t remember. And I-I found this under my pillow.” Tara points to the dried flower on her shirt.

“What is it?” Veronica asks.

“Lethe’s Bramble. A spell of forgetting. She took my mind, my free will. Glory-Glory did that before.”

Veronica nods and pulls Tara into a hug. She remembers Dawn telling her something about that and she knows all too well what someone else’s ego and desires can do to free will, even without magic.

“I’m sorry, Tara.”

“I-I don’t know what to do. I can’t do this,” Tara says helplessly.

“I’ll help you if I can,” Veronica assures her.

Suddenly her own love problems don’t seem so bad. Logan would never do something like that to her and at least both of them were trying to work on the problem, not erase it.

Anya beckons to her and Veronica gets to work and for a while it’s a little bit peaceful though there’s awkwardness all around. Then the door smashes open and Spike brings in a man with a puppet head.

“Puppet demon?” Veronica asks Anya.

“Looks like,” Anya says briskly.

The demon lets out a surprisingly lucid and detailed confession and Buffy sighs.

“Dawn’s in trouble. Must be Tuesday.”

Veronica doesn’t get the argument that follows. She can understand Buffy being uncomfortable around Spike and him wanting to give her space. She can even understand Giles wanting to make Buffy stand on her own two feet. But she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t just say so and why no one else is questioning him. Is she the only one actually listening to what the people around her are singing?

So Buffy goes on her own and Veronica would follow her only she knows she wouldn’t be that much help and she’s got work to do anyway and closing the shop down during business hours except in the event of an apocalypse is pretty much an apocalypse in Anya’s eyes.

Except they do end up going after her and she insists on going along and participates in their little musical walk.

_I think this line’s mostly filler._

Okay, not much. But she’s got her own songs to be singing.

_We are caught in the fire, the point of no return. And we will walk through the fire and let it burn. Let it burn. Let it burn._

They get to the Bronze and Buffy’s battling puppet demons and that’s another one for the diary really.

Then Buffy sings.

_Life’s a show and we all play our parts. And when the music starts we open up our hearts._

It’s beautiful and it’s hard and Veronica feels like maybe this is good because nobody knows much of what Buffy’s thinking and feeling lately. Even her little number in the graveyard hadn’t really told Veronica anything she didn’t already know. Buffy’s other friends are the ones who need to hear this. That’s her opinion anyway.

_Still my friends don’t know why I ignore, the million things or more, I should be dancing for._

Then the kicker.

_There was no pain. No fear, no doubt, till they pulled me out of heaven…so that's my refrain. I live in hell cause I've been expelled from heaven. I think I was in heaven._

Veronica watches Willow’s face and Xander’s surprise and Giles and Anya and Tara and Dawnie up on the stage and she knows that there is something broken here. Something so very wrong. Buffy’s going to let herself burn.

_So give me something to sing about. Please. Give me something._

Veronica starts to move forward. Why doesn’t someone else do something? But there’s a hand on her arm and a black and white form blurs past her and catches the smoking Slayer, stopping her cold.

_Life’s not a song. Life isn’t bliss. Life is just this: it’s living. You'll get along. The pain that you feel you only can heal by living. You have to go on living. So one of us is living._

Buffy stares up at Spike as he finishes singing, and Veronica knows the look of relief and despair on her face.

The demon entertains them with a little song after Xander confesses to being the summoner and, boy, does it look like Giles is going to give him a talking to. If he doesn’t, Veronica sure as hell is.

_Where do we go from here?_

Veronica sings with the rest because she really wants to know, too. She wants to know why and how.

There’s harmony and chorus and voices in unison but there’s nothing unified about this group. Little factions within, maybe, but nothing that could be construed as a mighty demon fighting group or a family like Veronica’s always thought of them as. She’s never felt more of an outsider and she hates it and she hates them for it.

She comes to herself as the voices fade away and she walks out into the alley. She’ll check in with them later but at the moment she’ regretting her choice to come to Sunnydale.

 _The curtains close on a kiss…_ she can hear them in the distance and the musical reality comes into full Technicolor beauty before her as she spies Spike and Buffy kissing in the alley. She smiles. One right thing to happen out of this mess. At least she hopes so.

When she unlocks her dorm room she grabs her taser because there’s someone lying on her bed.

“Easy, Mars,” comes Logan’s voice out of the dark. “See what flirting with your RA can get me?”

“Logan? What are you doing here?” she asks, flipping on the light.

“I’m coming to Sunnydale. Just enrolled,” he said casually.

“Why?” she asks stupidly, still a little hazy from all the weird singing.

“You know why,” he says, sitting up and facing her.

“But why? I thought you didn’t believe I wanted this.”

She’s feeling raw and exposed and she really doesn’t want to have this conversation right now. Her faith in humanity and relationships is at an all time low; despite the making out she’s just witnessed.

“I listened to the song again,” Logan said. “Most of it was actually about how much you missed me. I figured that meant something.”

“But you shouldn’t come here just for me,” she says slowly, hardly believing that this is where the conversation is heading.

“Like you shouldn’t come here just for them? Pardon me, my sweet, but I think my reasons are better.”

“But what if it doesn’t work?” she asks seriously.

“I’ll transfer somewhere fabulous,” he says flippantly.

“Don’t joke,” she says.

“I’m not,” he says earnestly. “You’re it for me, Veronica. You just have to decide what you want. I thought my giving you space would do that, but maybe what you really need is a relationship in the real world away from our past.”

“But your schooling…” she says half-heartedly.

“Doesn’t matter to me like it matters to you and I can figure it out here just as well as anywhere else. Besides, I like the campus and the classes. It’s near enough to Neptune I can manage my money. You matter to me most of all,” Logan says sincerely.

“I…”

“Do you want to be with me?” he asks, standing up and looking vulnerable and strong all at the same time.

She loves him for that. For giving it all and planning ahead. For being what she can’t or doesn’t allow herself to be.

“Get over here and find out,” she tells him.


	7. Buffy and Being Like a Superhero or Something

Buffy tries to patrol that night, she really does. Unfortunately, a graveyard is a really hard place to avoid a vampire.

Why is she avoiding the vampire that makes her feel the closest thing to heaven she’s known since she came back? Oh, all the usual reasons. She’s been too impulsive, she isn’t being fair to him, doesn’t know how to live. It’s getting old, even to her. She recalls the exact words she sang to him and feels a little annoyed with herself.

_I want this to be real. Only you can make me feel._

And that kiss…she swears it should have won some sort of award. She literally can’t stop thinking about it and how alive it made her feel and about the vamp who had given it to her. He’s obviously running out of whatever patience he’s mustered up for her and that kiss just fueled the fire. It wasn’t their first kiss by any means, but it was…she jerks back out of thinking about it again.

She stops patrolling because she spots Spike fighting off some sort of shark demon and flees the scene after making sure he’ll be all right.

Now she’s at Xander’s apartment and wishes she were back in the cemetery. They’re all treating her like glass since her big confessional number and she spares a brief thought to summoning Sweets herself so she can kill him. Everyone shifts guiltily whenever they look at her and they talk in whispers. Okay, so it’s not so different from when they thought she’d been in hell, but at least then she knew she wasn’t causing them all massive resurrection spell guilt.

They all deal with it in different ways, Willow, for instance, offering to make her forget about heaven entirely. Buffy’s saved from having to protect her memories by Tara jumping in to defend magic’s honor or something like that. She doesn’t really know the mechanics, all she knows is that she’s on Tara’s side and now they’re fighting big time, and she scrambles for the bedroom with Xander and Anya so they can avoid the scene that has to inevitably follow. Except that’s pretty impossible with the doors the way they are and it’s really hard to think up distracting conversational topics when you’re a) her, and, b) when something like that is going on in the living room.  
“You did it the way you're doing everything,” Tara’s voice rises. “When things get rough, you- you don't even consider the options. You just...you just do a spell. It's not good for you, Willow. And it's not what magic is for.”

“But I-I just wanna help people,” Willow protests.

“Maybe that's how it started, but...you're helping yourself now, fixing things to your liking. Including me,” Tara says.

“Tara, no!” 

There’s a beat of silence and then Tara speaks with tears in her voice.

“I don't think this is gonna work.”

Buffy exchanges looks with Xander and Anya and they all hold their breath. Willow starts pleading and eventually promises to not use magic for a week. Buffy doesn’t think that’s really likely, but she hopes so for Willow’s sake.  
Still, the night is pretty much shot and she feels awkward enough so she makes her excuses and heads back to the Magic Shop where she can maybe work out some of the awful feelings running through her veins. She doubts it.

Giles is in the back room and she has about one minute of thinking he might be able to help before he sits her down and stomps on that theory. He tells her that he’s leaving to go back to England.

She doesn’t think that’s such a good idea. Because she might not know what to do and she might be traumatized and she might be tempted to lean on Spike more than Giles these days, but she always feels in the back of her mind that Giles can somehow fix what’s wrong with her life.

“You have to be strong,” he explains. “I'm-I'm trying to-"

“Trying to, to what? Desert me? Abandon me? I can't do this without you,” Buffy pleads.

“You can. That's why I'm going. As long as I stay you'll always turn to me if there's something that comes up that you feel that you can't handle, and I'll step in because-because...because I can't bear to see you suffer.”

She doesn’t see how him leaving is going to do anything but cause her more suffering.

“Me too. Hate suffering. Had about as much of it as I can take,” she says desperately.

He looks sad but she’s not rational enough to see that right now. She just sees another back going away from her.

“I've taught you all I can about being a Slayer, and your mother taught you what you needed to know about life. You-you're not going to trust that until you're forced to stand alone,” he says.

She laughs derisively. 

“I see. I see that you simply want to be rid of the responsibility of Buffy-watch. She’s not performing well, so we better just walk away and start over somewhere else.”

“Buffy…that’s not-“

“You’re a Watcher through and through, aren’t you?” she accuses.

“To be fair you didn’t exactly rely on me very much before you…er, died. You were rather invested in another relationship,” Giles says.

“Spike believes in me,” Buffy says quietly. “I don’t know what that means for us now, but he would never just walk away.”

“I wish I could share your sentiments,” Giles says sadly.

“If you don’t trust him not to leave, why are you? Like you left when I was dead and left my sister who’d been put in your care!”

“Tara could take far better care of her than I. I-I took care of everything that I could,” Giles stammered.

“Like your plane tickets. Then and now.”

“Buffy, I've thought this over...and over. I believe it's the right thing to do.”

“You're wrong,” she says.

She leaves because in another minute she’s going to pull a Cruciamentum and throw something at him and this time she won’t miss.

Giles makes his big announcement the next morning. They’re all gathered in her own personal little shop of horrors but they’re waiting for Willow and Xander.

They come in holding the door open for Logan and Veronica. Willow’s wearing Logan’s coat.

“Thanks for the coat, it’s cold out there,” she tells him.

“No worries,” Logan says. “Even if you run off with it I can just get another one.”

Veronica rolls her eyes and greets everyone.

“We didn’t know you were back in town,” Tara tells Logan warmly.

“Announcement: I’m moving in,” Logan says happily.

“Announcement: we’ve got room,” Buffy says bitterly and Logan looks sharply at her. 

She turns away from his gaze because he’s learned to read her a little too well.

“Anyway…we just wanted to know if we could get some help moving him in. He wanted to hire people but I told him this is not the college way,” Veronica says and Buffy notes how happy she looks.

“I’ve never exactly been known to do things the normal way,” Logan says, leaning up against the counter beside Willow as if anxious to protect his jacket.

Veronica pushes past him to sit beside Xander.

“Like ask for help,” she asks.

“What’s that?” Logan asks in return, smirk firmly in place.

Buffy loves their banter, she truly does, but all there is inside her right now is a big hole.

Giles stands up and looks like he’s going to be all pompous and then the door bursts open and Spike rushes in, smoking. As in about to be on fire. He’s wearing…a hideous brown suit and the most ridiculous hat Buffy’s ever seen. She spares one brief second, wishing for a camera.

“Nice to have you join us,” Giles says, looking irritated.

“I need sanctuary,” Spike says drolly, hopping up on the counter under Anya’s disapproving gaze.

“What else is new?” Xander asks.

Spike looks over at Buffy and she can’t look away from his gaze. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look anything. He just looks at her and she hates that feeling where it feels like he knows every single one of her private thoughts. What he’ll do with them she doesn’t know.

But Giles speaks up again and tells everyone he’s leaving. Cue general consternation and outrage. Yeah, Buffy knows the feeling. But she’s done dealing with it.

“I can't do this,” she says and walks past everyone towards the door.

“Buffy, listen,” Willow says and Buffy stops. “I know this must be awful for you, and I-I'm sorry, I-I'm so sorry for...” 

“Sorry,” Buffy says bitterly. “Everybody's sorry. I know that you guys are just trying to help...but it's just- it's too much. And-and I-I can't take it anymore.” She looks down and tries to hold back her tears. “If you guys...if you guys understood how it felt...how it feels. It's like I'm dying, it-"

But she never gets to say anything more about how it feels because there’s a sudden spark of light in her vision and then she’s weightless and full of black emptiness and she can feel the floor beneath her where there should be no floor and then… 

She wakes up in a strange room and she has no idea where it is. Come to think of it, she doesn’t know who she is either. That’s strange. That’s more than strange, it’s wrong. But it somehow feels better than before. Whatever before was.

There are a bunch of people around her and a teenage girl beside her starts freaking out and she reaches to calm her down, almost on reflex.

A middle-aged man starts talking about calming down and some guy is freaking out about being in a lab somewhere. The hot blonde guy in the awful suit is making fun of everyone. One of the blonde girls is watching everything with an incredibly sharp eye and the redhead is busy trying to avoid looking at the guy she apparently woke up next to.

It’s a bit chaotic and she has the urge to laugh but she’s too worried about why she doesn’t remember anything to do so.  
“We'll all get our memory back, and it'll all be right as rain,” the older man is saying.

“Oh, listen to Mary Poppins,” Blonde Guy says. “He's got his crust all stiff and upper with that nancy-boy accent. You Englishmen are always so...” He pauses. “Bloody hell!” He starts ticking off words she doesn’t understand off his fingers. “Sodding, blimey, shagging, knickers, oh bollocks, I'm English!”

“Welcome to the nancy tribe,” says Old Guy with Glasses.

“You don't suppose you and I...we're not related, are we?” Blonde Guy says contemptuously.

“There is a ruggedly handsome resemblance,” says the blonde girl sitting rather close to Old Guy who smiles at the compliment and inspects Blonde Guy.

“And you do inspire a, um...particular feeling of...familiarity and...disappointment. Older brother?”

“Father,” Blonde Guy scoffs. “Oh, how I must hate you.”

“What did I do?” Old Guy asks.

“There's always something, and what's with the trollop?” Blonde Guy says, pointing to Blonde Girl in Purple.

Which she obviously resents and rightly so except Blonde Girl finds a ring on her finger and they all assume there’s some May/December romance going on which, ew. 

She’s more concerned about finding out who she is, thank you very much.

Other Blonde Girl finally speaks up and informs everyone that they should look for some form of identification on their persons and that’s the first sensible thing any of them have said.

They all dig in their pockets but she doesn’t find anything and finds that a bit suspicious, as well as annoying, especially since everyone else is hitting pay dirt.

Freaking Out About Experiments Guy informs everyone that his name is Alexander Harris and he seems to think Other Blonde Girl is his girlfriend since they woke up snuggling.

Other Blonde Girl tells him her name is Veronica Mars and that they’re on a temporary break-up until she gets her memory back, thank you very much.

Redhead Girl’s Boy starts laughing at that.

“No one wants to go the guilt-free sex route?” he asks.

“What’s your name, jackass?” Veronica asks him and he digs in his pockets.

“I knew she was into me; sorry, honey,” he informs the redhead who inches away from him a bit. “Logan Echolls from the bright town of Neptune, CA,” he tells them all.

“That’s where I’m from, too,” Veronica says, looking at him askance.

“You think we’re best pals?” Logan asks her.

“I think I probably avoid you,” Veronica says, looking him up and down with disdain.

He just laughs at her and turns back to the redhead.

“And who’s the stunning girl I woke up with?”

“Willow Rosenberg,” she says in a small voice. “A weird name and a guy’s jacket being all that I appear to possess.”

“I believe that’s mine,” Logan says, inspecting the label.

“Oh,” Willow says and she doesn’t sound relieved.

A third blonde girl pokes her hand up and announces her name is Tara Maclay.

Engaged Blonde Girl has found her name in the cash register which she appears to instinctively know how to use. It’s Anya Jenkins and she owns the shop with Rupert Giles who turns out to be Old Guy.

“Rupert,” Blonde Guy scoffs.

Rupert glares at him.

“Anyway, what do I call you?” he asks.

“Um...” He looks at his jacket, twisting around in all sorts of interesting ways to try and read the labels. “ 'Made with loving care for Randy.' Randy Giles?” he yells, pushing Rupert hard enough to hurt, though the other man just rolls back and adapts. “Why not just call me Horny Giles, or Desperate for a Shag Giles? I knew there was a reason I hated you!”

“Randy's...a family name, undoubtedly,” Rupert says, taking his glasses off.   
The teenage girl beside her has been quietly freaking out this whole time so she puts her arm around her and sees her necklace.

“Your name is Dawn,” she reassures her.

“Or Umad,” the girl jokes quietly and she feels a strange spike of affection for her.

Except now everyone’s staring at her expecting her to pull some kind of identity out of the air and she doesn’t have one.

“I think I’ll name myself,” she says. “I feel like a…Joan.”

“Joan?” says Randy in derision.

“Yes, Randy?” she says pointedly and he shuts up.

She likes what that does to his face. When he’s not talking non-stop he’s kind of cute. Scratch that, he’s more than cute. He’s practically perfect. Those cheekbones and when he stretches the suit doesn’t hide the gorgeous form that must be underneath it and…

She really can’t focus on this right now. She’s sort of an amnesiac in a magic shop full of occult stuff.

Does she believe in that kind of stuff? Apparently.

Veronica and Rupert are arguing about whether they should go to the hospital or try some sort of spell and she can’t believe he’s even suggesting that.

“Hey!” Joan yells. “Look, even if magic stuff is all real, we don’t know how to use it. We should go to the hospital.”

“Who made Joan the boss?” Randy says, but he looks like he agrees with her.

They start to leave and she opens the door and a monster shows up in front of her.

Ten simultaneous screams split the air and she slams the door again and locks it.

“We want Spike!” come some yells from outside.

“What’s a ‘spike?’ ” Logan asks, looking at them all suspiciously.

“I don’t know,” Randy says, “but we should just give it to them.”

“Nobody’s giving anything until we know what to do,” Joan says firmly.

“Is there a back door to this place?” Veronica asks.

Veronica and Joan look at each other.

“Find it, bar it,” Joan says.

There’s a shattering noise and glass explodes everywhere. The monsters, the real-life vampires! come running in and head straight for Randy.

He starts to struggle and knocks over a shelf sending stuff flying everywhere. Logan and Alex are attempting to pull the vampires off Randy and Veronica has gotten Anya to help her pull a large bookcase in front of the back door. A vampire manages to get in before they can close it and Joan watches in astonishment as Veronica lands a nice kick on the vamp’s neck, knocking him back outside. Anya and Tara push the bookcase in front of the door again.

A long wooden stake rolls on the floor toward her and Joan instinctively grasps it.  
“Hey! Stay away from Randy!” she yells, grabbing a vampire’s collar and hurling him backward, out the window. 

She swings the stake forward on a second vampire without much thought. The vampire explodes into dust and they all stare in complete amazement. Including her. 

“Whoa!” Dawn says.

“What did you just do?” Willow asks.

“Uh...I....I don't know.” Joan starts to smile. “But it was cool!” 

“The boss ain't gonna like this! I'll be back. And I won't be alone!” the other vamp says and runs out the now splintered front door.

Randy shuts and locks it behind him and pulls the security grate down over the broken window.

Joan’s never felt so good in all her twenty-odd minutes of life. This feels absolutely right.

“I think I know why Joan's the boss. I'm like a superhero or something!” she says.   
Everyone’s looking at her now and she doesn’t mind. She feels like she can do this. She gathers everyone around.

“Okay. I've got a plan. They seem to want Randy. And I seem to be pretty strong. Wicked strong. So, you guys go through the sewers to get to the hospital, and Randy and I'll give the monsters a run for their money.”

“That's your plan?” Randy asks incredulously.

“Yes,” Joan says.

“Right,” he says agreeably.

“I’m going with you,” Veronica says determinedly.

Joan nods. 

“I saw you kick that vamp. I think that will work.”

“And who’s supposed to protect us in the sewers?” Logan asks.

“Grow some cajones,” Veronica tells him.

“Oh, they’re grown,” he tells her, winking at her.

In the meantime Anya refuses to leave the shop and Rupert decides to stay with her and maybe try some spells. Joan figures it might work.

“We need to go,” she says. “Ready, Randy?”

“Ready, Joan.”  
“What am I, chopped liver?” Veronica mutters, moving in behind them.

“Um, son,” Rupert says. Randy stops. “Come here. Um, please.”

“Um...” says Randy.

“Yes, um...” replies Rupert.

Randy stands awkwardly next to Rupert and they sort of hug and then Randy straightens up quickly and it’s all a little bit hilarious. 

“Right,” says Randy.

“Good, then,” says Rupert.

They rush out, Joan, Randy, and Veronica, and Joan feels an adrenaline rush. She shoulders a vamp out of the way and hears a clattering behind her. Veronica’s just ducked under a vamp’s outreached arms and they watch as another vamp flies through the air propelled by Randy’s arm.

“Hey, I’m a superhero, too!” he yells and turns around.

Veronica freezes and Joan screams.

His face is distorted, fangs and yellow eyes gleaming. He’s a vampire.

Veronica and Joan look at each other and then run away.

“What are we going to do?” Veronica asks as they run.

“I don’t know,” Joan says back. 

She feels a hand on her arm and punches behind her, knocking him down and he pulls her down with him. She ends up straddling him with a stake to his heart.

“Bloody hell, what are you doing?” Randy asks.

She looks back at him and then realizes that he really doesn’t know.

“You don't know who you are,” she says.

“Right, none of us do, and we're being chased by-" he starts to say.

“You're a vampire!” Veronica tells him.

He snaps his head over to look at her.

“How can you say- I – me - a vampire? No.”

“Check the lumpies. And the teeth,” says Joan.

He feels his face and horror crosses it. A really weird combination and she has to resist the urge to laugh. Strangely enough, even now, she’s not feeling scared. Kind of happy. Kind of interested. 

“I kill your kind,” she says in an attempt to remain cool.

“And I bite yours. So how come I don't wanna bite you? And why am I fighting other vampires?” She doesn’t know. She looks at Veronica, who shrugs. “I must be a noble vampire. A good guy. On a mission of redemption. I help the hopeless. I'm a vampire with a soul.”

Joan can’t process that even a little bit. She’s new to the supernatural, okay? Besides this particular vampire is causing all sorts of conflicting thoughts inside her head.

“A vampire with a soul? How lame is that?” she finally says. 

Because it is.

He moves underneath her and she suddenly realizes just exactly where she’s sitting. She hastily gets off him and Veronica shoots her a knowing glance.

“I'm a hero really,” he says, apparently not even noticing. “I mean, to be cast such an ugly lot in life and then to rise above it. To seek out better, nobler things. It's inspirational, isn't it? And the two of us…” he says, stepping close to Joan, invading a lot of personal space. She doesn’t like it, nope, not even a little bit. Stupid, sped-up heartbeat. “…natural enemies, thrown together to stand against the forces of darkness. Utter trust. No thought of me biting you, no thought of you staking me.”

“Depends on how long you keep on yapping,” Veronica says and Joan might agree just a little bit, if he wasn’t standing so close and her being unable to step away due to some vampire power thing.

Then the other vampires come again and she gets to fight a bit.

Which is good. Very distracting and good. She has a feeling she wants to be distracted and fighting. Turns out Randy fights pretty well, too and Veronica holds her own even if she and Randy have to protect her a bit.

Then there’s a jolt in the air and Buffy slams back into herself with all the force of a kamikaze jet and just as much devastation.

“Bloody hell!” she hears again from behind her.

“What the hell?” comes Veronica’s voice.

Buffy can’t think. She sits on the ground stunned from more than just the vampire’s fist to her jaw.

Joan was so much easier.

It’s all rushing back. Death, heaven, Spike, Giles leaving, Dawn.

Hell is the right word.

Spike recovers first and slays the vampires, sending dust everywhere and then the shark demon she saw before comes up to him.

“You're an odd duck, Mister Spike. Fighting your own kind...palling around with a Slayer. And, whoa, that suit! Chutzpah must be your middle name.” He chuckles weakly. “Uh, hey, look, um...about our little debt problem, it's okay, I don't need the kittens.” 

Spike grabs him and holds him menacingly.

“You'll get paid. I'm no welsher.”

No, he just cheats at kitten poker.

The demon runs for his life but she barely notices cause she’s just on the ground, readjusting. Again.

He offers her a hand up and she looks at him for a full five minutes before she takes it, letting it go as soon as she can, and then running back to the Magic Box.

They find the others all back to themselves. Giles and Anya aren’t looking at each other and Xander looks rather pleased with himself but Tara is crying and Willow looks devastated.

At that point Buffy thinks she deserves to be. She knows Willow did this. She knows it.

Giles leaves that night. Buffy doesn’t say goodbye to him.

Tara moves out while Dawn cries and refuses to talk to anyone. A rather subdued Veronica and Logan take Tara back to Veronica’s dorm where she’s going to live for the time being. Willow’s disappeared.

Xander takes a suddenly randy (Hey! Amnesiac Buffy learned a new word today) Anya home with a red, but pleased look on his face. 

Buffy wanders a bit. She should be home with Dawn, but she’s too upset. Instead she goes to the Bronze. Hail, the almighty Bronze, ever there in times of trouble.

She’s there for a long time just thinking and she doesn’t come to any conclusions. The problem is she knows she can’t come to most of them by herself.

She’s alone, but she does have someone who wants to be there for her and she wants him to be there for her. She just doesn’t know if she can be there for him.

“You think any harder you’ll pop,” Spike says from behind her.

She sighs and looks away from him and then girds herself.

“We should talk,” she says and leads him upstairs to where it’s less noisy.

He looks nervous and she doesn’t blame him.

“Sorry for being avoid-y,” she says. “It’s been a tough week.”

“Tough few months,” he tells her.

“Right,” she says with a smile. “Point is, I just don’t know who I am anymore and you know that better than anyone. And what we had before was…it was nice, but I’m not that girl anymore.”

“You’re never not you,” he says with a hint of a smile. “You’re changed, you’re in pain, but you’re still you. It doesn’t mean we have to pick up where we left off…”

“But you want to,” Buffy states.

It’s a fact.

“Slayer-" he starts and then groans. “Buffy, I love you. Made no bones about that for a long time now. But it’s never been about me. I’m never gonna stop loving you even when you’re dust. Might be you never feel the same way despite what we had before. Still, I’m not gonna stop being there for you. Never gonna leave.”

“That’s the problem!” she says. “You don’t go. You just stay and be perfect and that’s the most infuriating thing ever.”

“A bit ironic, too,” he points out.

“Irony to be had for all,” she agrees. “Because you’re a vampire and you shouldn’t be this wonderful and Giles should be and I shouldn’t care about whether or not I hurt you. But I do. I’m dealing with so much right now and I can’t be fair to you.”

“Bollocks,” he says. “Look, you’re going through hell but you and me isn’t about that. Gut instinct, first reaction, what do you want?”

“You,” she says and looks him bravely in the eyes.

“Done,” he says, but he doesn’t make any moves.

“Can you live with that?” she asks, speaking about more than their words.

“Haven’t lived with anything for a long time, love,” he says. “I think I’m good.”

“You’re just as full of crap as I am,” she tells him, but she’s moved closer and she puts her arms around his neck.

“Gotta love me anyway,” he says, smiling a bit.

“Spike…” she says, feeling bad.

“Not looking for a declaration of sorts,” he says firmly, forcing her chin up to look at him. “We’ll take this slow. You set the pace. I just get to be here.”

“Tell me,” she says finally. “Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

“Only if you promise to do the same,” Spike says.

“I’m gonna hurt no matter what you do,” she says. “But thank you.”

Then she gives in before he can say anything else and the kissing starts and she feels a little bit better. She wants to devour who he is and keep him inside of her because he can dull the pain and the dead man has the spark of life in him and she knows…deep in her gut…that he will never leave her. 

It may not be right or simple but it’s better than before, kissing Spike, feeling Spike, knowing Spike, letting Spike love her, giving him what she can. 

She pulls apart from him for one second, resting her forehead against his, catching her breath, and then dives back in, trying her hardest to draw everything she can from him. 

She can’t regret it.


	8. Veronica and the Museum Theft

Veronica lazily pushes the volume button on the television. She’s hanging out with the Scoobies over at Buffy’s house and she’s supposed to be doing her homework. Well, she’s got it mostly done and Dawn’s begging her to watch with her so she does. Her phone buzzes beside her and it’s Logan but she doesn’t really feel like talking to him so she ignores it.

She flips through the channels and hits the news. A reporter is standing in front of the Sunnydale Museum talking about a stolen diamond and a frozen security guard. She raises her eyebrow.

“That happen often?” she asks Dawn.

“Nope,” Dawn says, sitting up. “I’m thinking it might be research time.”

Buffy walks into the room and slumps down on the couch.

“Dawnie, you need to finish your homework,” she says.

“But it’s almost over,” Dawn says.

“I got a call from your teacher, she says you’re not doing as well as you could,” Buffy says dully but firmly. “You need to do it first and then you can watch something.”

“Veronica’s not,” Dawn says rebelliously, flinging herself off the couch and up the stairs.

“Veronica’s an adult,” Buffy says wearily.

“I’m sorry,” Veronica says, making to leave. “I’ll go.”

“No, it’s okay,” Buffy tells her. “I’m just gonna have to be So-Unfair-Totally-Ruining-Her-Life-All-New-Adult Buffy for a while.”

“Ah, the rare breed,” Xander says, coming in from the kitchen with Willow.

Veronica hasn’t really seen Willow for a while. After the amnesia spell Giles had taken Willow and Xander aside before his flight and neither of them had looked too happy when they came back. All Veronica knows is that Tara’s living with her now and really depressed and Willow doesn’t look too much better.

“I’ve got something to say,” Buffy says, sitting up.

Willow and Xander exchange glances and lean forward.

“What’s up?” Willow asks.

“Spike and I are seeing each other again,” Buffy says.

“About time,” Veronica says, smiling, then notices that Willow and Xander aren’t doing the same.

“Not again,” Xander groans. “We thought death had knocked some sense into you.”

“Really sensitive there,” Veronica says sharply.

Xander starts guiltily. 

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought that you might not feel the way you did…before the…the dying.”

“I don’t,” Buffy says. “Not all the way. But I-I just need something and he’s it. And that might not be fair, but it’s just…the way it is.”

“Take it from someone who’s not in Healthy Relationship Land,” Willow says, “don’t do this. You’re just gonna get hurt.”

“Are you guys both crazy?” Veronica says. “She’s only ever been happy with Spike.”

“She’s never died before,” Willow says.

“Uh…hello, drowning/resuscitation?” Buffy says, looking like she’s attempting a smile.

“Right…” Willow says, trailing off. 

“Bottom line, Spike’s a vamp without a soul,” Xander says, “and we tend to kill those.”

Logan buzzes her for the third time in an hour and Veronica groans.

Ever since the spell he’s been feeling extra guilty or something for the things Amnesia Logan said to her and he’s returned to Extra Clingy Logan Who Just Happens To Live in the Same Dorm Hall And Is Impossible To Avoid.

She has to leave and she hates to because Willow and Xander are going to town on a practically helpless Buffy, but she’s got her own problems.

She does call Spike and inform him of what’s going on and tells him to get over there as soon as he can.

He thanks her and then hangs up quickly after she confirms their training session for the next morning. She’s decided that she can’t afford to give up on that while she lives in Sunnydale and just a taser isn’t going to work anymore. Besides, she misses it.

Tara’s gone when Veronica gets home so she bites the bullet and calls Logan back.

“How goes the homework?” he asks, surprisingly not sounding like he’s pissed off because she hasn’t called him back.

“Kinda got caught up in a Scoobie argument. Buffy and Spike are together again. Willow and Xander: not so happy about it,” Veronica explains.

“It’s about time,” he says, snorting.

“I highly agree. I can’t think of anything better for her at the moment. I’m just worried what the pressure she’s under is going to do to them both. I just needed to be there for her. Sorry,” Veronica adds lamely.

“I want you to be there for her,” he says cautiously.

“But…?”

“But I kind of can’t help feel shunted out of the picture. Also, that you’re putting too much pressure on yourself,” Logan says.

“First one’s more important though?” she asks, more snidely than she should have.

“Claws out, I see,” Logan says, clearly refusing to fight, but still managing to be nasty. “Shall I call my emergency eye transplant doctor now or are you feeling generous?”

“Yeah, the thing I want to be doing most in the whole world is cleaning up after you and explaining the absence of the world’s most annoying child celebrity,” Veronica says extra brightly.

“The reporters will be beating down your door and then I can just see the headlines: Chronically Self-Righteous Veronica Mars Jailed For Murder!”

“Some reason why you’re being such a jerk right now?” Veronica asks.

“I move here for you and all you can do is practice self-defense with a vampire and put yourself in danger. A pretty good reason, I’d say,” Logan says, sighing.

“You say a lot of things, but it’s all just a cover up for a poor little rich boy who doesn’t have any friends.”

She winces as soon as she’s said it because that’s hitting a whole bunch of nerves that she knows she shouldn’t.

“I’m thinking about hanging up,” he says after a minute or two.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I just feel like you’re overreacting a little. I think it’s important to be able to take care of myself and I would like to remind you that you said moving here wasn’t about trying to possess me.”

“Hell, Veronica, it always comes back to that with you. You’re so afraid of getting close to someone that you develop every way possible to protect yourself and you’re the one who’s just gonna end up getting hurt. And then you’ll probably get eaten.”

“I can take care of myself,” Veronica says.

“You don’t have Slayer strength anymore,” he reminds her.

“Neither do you but that doesn’t stop you from getting into stupid fights,” she points out.

“I’m not fighting vampires,” he replies.

“Well, you live in Sunnydale now, you just might have to. I suggest you get the same lessons I’m getting because I’m itching to try them out on you.”

“Physical violence again,” he says, tutting. “Maybe I should get a restraining order.”

“Now who’s distancing themselves?” she asks.

He actually laughs at that.

“Mars, you’re going to be the death of me. I’ve got some stuff to do.”

“That’s it?” she asks incredulously.

“Oh, we’re not even close to through,” he promises her. “But I’ve reached my limit for the evening.”

“You arrogant-” she starts.

“Much love and kisses from this end,” he interrupts her and hangs up.

She throws her phone onto her bed in frustration.

It rings again and stops her inner tirade.

“Logan, you’re insufferable!” she yells into the phone without even looking at who it is.

“I know he is, but I’m not,” Mac informs her calmly.

“Sorry, Mac,” Veronica says, closing her eyes. “Just a little couples glitch.”

“You two are practically glitch city,” Mac says. “Should I be worried?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Want something else on your shoulders?” Mac asks.

Veronica’s eyes widen.

“Hit me.”

“I’m worried about Willow,” says Mac bluntly.

“Join the club,” says Veronica.

“Well, we’ve been talking a lot since you got there about magic and stuff cause she’s still my sponsor in some groups. And everything she says recently is really negative and super pro-magic.”

“She’s always been pro-magic,” Veronica says.

“But she’s pro-magic she always told me never to touch,” Mac answers.

“Oh.”

“You can see why I do the worrying thing,” Mac says.

“Yeah, we’ve been doing that, too. She tell you about the little forgetting spell she pulled recently?” Veronica asks.

“No.”

“For about a half an hour I had no memories and thought I was going out with Xander,” Veronica says.

Mac laughs and Veronica doesn’t blame her but the cause of the laughter is still really serious.

“Will you be careful?” Mac asks.

“Now you sound like Logan,” Veronica says, pouting.

“While he’s way too extreme about the way he shows it he does care about you,” Mac tells her.

“I know, I know. But I’m feeling claustrophobic and overwhelmed.”

“I’m sorry,” Mac offers. “Just let me know how I can help and maybe drive out here sometime.”

“Checking my incredibly busy schedule as we speak,” Veronica says.

“I’m coming day after tomorrow actually. Willow invited me out.”

“Maybe I’ll actually get to see you,” Veronica says.

“Here’s hoping,” Mac replies.

After they hang up Veronica types a quick email to Giles telling him about Mac’s concerns. He’s the only person she knows with enough magical know-how to help her and she’s not bothering Tara with this until she knows more. Hopefully he’ll actually check it.

She doesn’t sleep well that night. In the end she falls asleep and keeps dreaming stressful things. Logan and Willow really together and teaming up to take over Sunnydale with a freeze ray while Buffy jumps off a tower and Aaron breaks out of jail to laugh at her while standing over Lily’s grave.

She doesn’t feel like physical activities when she gets up but she drags herself to the Magic Box and the back room and meets Spike.

“What’s wrong?” she asks immediately when she sees him.

Sleepy she may temporarily be, but detective she eternally is.

“Whole world,” he says gloomily as he motions for her to start stretching.

“Why?” she asks patiently and bites her lip as her body starts to protest.

“Thanks for the tip-off about last night. Went over there, got into a brawl with the boy, and he took a swing at me.”

“And then?” Veronica asks.

“I swung back,” Spike says.

“Spike!” Veronica admonishes.

“Didn’t hit him,” Spike says.

“Good.”

“Hit Buffy.”

“Oh,” says Veronica.

“Yeah. And it didn’t hurt,” Spike continues.

“What?” she asks, staring at him and forgetting to get back up from the floor. “But that means…”

“Chip’s fine,” he says. “I tried…it’s fine.”

“Did you try to hurt someone?” she asks cautiously.

“I’m trying here,” he yells at her and she flinches slightly. “I don’t get a shiny soul telling me what to do. I’ve got nothing but bloody love to guide me and that’s varying as the sodding seasons. I’m a vampire. People forget that. I’m bred for blood and darkness and a part of me is always gonna want that. Chip or not.”

“Okay,” she says, recovering herself and standing up. “Okay, I believe you.”

“Sorry, pet,” he says and punches the punching bag.

It flies to the other side of the room and lies there.

“How do you know it still works?” Veronica asks.

“Other than the bloody headache I got when I did try to punch the whelp? There’s a bloke hereabouts who’s all into the technology thing. Last year he made himself a robot girlfriend that went wild.”

“Robot girlfriend?” Veronica says in disgust.

“Yeah, real realistic, too. Future evil scientist in the making.”

“Human?” Veronica asks.

Something about that perks her interest and tries to remind her brain of something but it’s not making any connections so far. So she puts it on the back burner.

“And cowardly. Found him and threatened him and his little friends into making sure it worked. Gotta conclude Slayer came back…wrong,” Spike says gloomily.

“This is not good,” Veronica says, getting into position, though she’s really intrigued by what he’s saying.

“Some detect-ing skills you got there, Private Eye,” he tells her, feinting to her left.

“I dizzy myself sometimes,” she answers. “Now…tell me what you’re going to do.”

“Dunno. What should I do? Slayer’s got her friends breathing down her neck. Only just got back with her. Don’t want to set her off.”

“But you can’t keep this from her. She’ll absolutely flip if you do. What if Xander finds out first and tells her?” Veronica points out.

“I should’ve killed the whelp years ago,” he mutters.

“There’s that anti-hero I love,” she says, spinning around and hitting air.

“You’re dropping your shoulder, luv,” he tells her.

“You think you could talk to Logan once all your Buffy issues are solved?” Veronica asks, to change the subject.

“When she’s dead and so likely will he be? Sure,” Spike agrees.

She makes a face.

“He’s worried about me fighting. Can you just talk to him?” she asks.

“We’ll see,” he says in a non-committal tone.

Veronica’s sore after their workout. Very sore. She works a shift for Anya directly after and then goes home and showers before her next class. In the end she’s got two classes to go to and she drags herself to them and then forces herself to write a paper and read three chapters. She flips on the tv to avoid complete brain death and is glad to see that the frozen security guard has been thawed out though the thieves and diamond are still at large.

Tara comes home at that point and Veronica’s glad for any distraction that will keep her mind off of Logan and Spike and Willow and all the problems that she can’t solve by finding a culprit.

“You up for some dinner?” she asks instead.

“I’m meeting Dawn. You wanna come with?” Tara asks.

“Sure. It’s sweet how you get her on Mondays and alternate weekends,” Veronica says, grabbing her purse.

Tara blushes. 

“I-I care about her.”

“I think it’s actually sweet,” Veronica assures her and they chat amiably on their way to pick up Dawn.

“Where’s Buffy?” Veronica asks Dawn as she gets in Veronica’s car.

“Patrolling or hopefully Spike-groping,” Dawn says.

“Dawn!” Tara says.

“What?” asks Dawn. “The UST is starting to kill me. Maybe it’ll make her less zombie-like and pay a little bit more attention to m-life.”

Veronica and Tara exchange glances.

“Where do you want to go?” Veronica asks, changing the subject.

They eat at the Espresso Pump and Veronica tries to get herself to relax. It’s more difficult than it has any right to be. But she keeps glancing at her phone and wondering if Logan’s going to call or if she’s supposed to call him and thinking she should just get Mac to place some sort of camera in his dorm room or something. She’s strictly on a non-invasion-of-privacy diet at the moment so she reluctantly nixes that idea. Thoughts of criminal activity lead her brain to other things.

“Dawn, did you tell Buffy about the stolen diamond/frozen guard thing?”

“Yes,” Dawn said. “She got all uppity and said to let her worry about it and she checked out the crime scene and then had the gang researching it all day. Nothing so far.”

“Something about that seems less than supernatural to me,” Veronica says absently.

“Everything’s supernatural here,” Tara says.

“It’s just not right,” Veronica says, but can’t put it any clearer than that.

They finish up dinner and take Dawn home. Willow’s light is on so Tara doesn’t give in to Dawn’s attempt to get them to come inside.

When they get back to the dorm Logan is waiting outside the door.

“At least he’s not breaking in anymore,” she says under her breath, knowing she’s the queen of breaking into places.

“I’ll let you two talk,” Tara says, grabbing a towel and heading for the showers.

“Real subtle,” Logan says, watching her go.

“She’s amazing and you know it,” Veronica says.

“Got sense and everything,” he agrees and then rubs his hand through his hair like he’s not sure what to say.

“Care to come in?” she says and gestures inside.

“Yeah,” he says.

They go inside and she’s just on the verge of offering to get him some water or something casually social like that when he jumps up again.

“You’re agitated,” she observes.

“You’re obvious,” he says, then faces her. “I’m sorry.”

“About?” she asks.

“What I said while I didn’t know who I was and the way I’ve been acting since then.”

“Logan…it’s fine. I didn’t know who I was either,” she replies.

“Sometimes I don’t think I’ve ever changed,” he says, sitting down next to her. “Some things I don’t want to change, but I don’t want to be the guy that you almost broke up with because of what a jackass he was.”

“You’re always going to be that,” she says, but affectionately, and tugs him back to lie down on the bed.

“You’re a big girl,” he says, pulling her close, “but you take too many risks and I’m literally turning into your dad as I say this.”

“That would be gross,” she says, kissing his cheek. “But thank you.”

“I still think you need to be careful and I still would like a little Logan time scheduled into the Big Supernatural World of Veronica Mars.”

“Believe you me, I’m almost missing Neptune right now,” she says.

He laughs and turns to look at her.

“Really?”

“No vampires. Everything has a paper trail or a time stamp or something I can trace. It’s just being switched at birth and keggers and sneaking into the principal’s office.”

“And the beach,” he whispers, putting his arm under her head.

“Hmmm, I love the beach,” she says, leaning forward to kiss him.

She loves kissing him, too. That and other things.

“I’ve gotta go,” he says approximately twenty minutes later.

“Why?” she asks, pulling him closer.

“You got a roommate now and I’ve got an early class,” he says, getting off the bed.

“Spoilsport,” she says.

“I believe the term is self-cockblock,” he says. “We’re not done here, Veronica.”

He means more than just the making out.

“I know,” she says and kisses him goodbye.

She sleeps better that night, though her dreams still consist of bus drivers with diamond jackets driving through freezers and over cliffs.

She and Tara are awakened the next morning by a knocking on the door.

Hastily pulling a robe on, Veronica unlocks the door and opens it to reveal Buffy looking a little worse for wear.

“Come in,” she says.

Tara pulls her toward the bed.

“What’s up, sweetie?”

“Spike was up. All night long,” Buffy says in a hazy voice and now that Veronica looks at her she sees the unmistakable post-coital glow that she herself enjoys on occasion.

She laughs a little and sits Buffy down.

“Nice,” Veronica says.

“More than nice. More than nice,” Buffy says. “Like better than nice. Only…”

“What?” Veronica says, frowning and Tara looks concerned.

“I may have destroyed – we may have destroyed – an entire house.” Buffy pauses and looks at them but they don’t say anything. “See…he told me his chip didn’t work on me anymore, everyone else, but not me, and I may have done a little wigging out.”

“Then…?” Tara prompts.

“Then he gets upset and I get upset and there may have been some hitting and smashing,” Buffy mumbles.

“That’s how you ruined the house?” Tara asks.

“The living room anyway,” Buffy says in a small voice.

“Are you okay?” Veronica asks.

“I don’t know,” Buffy says, seemingly going for casual. “I don’t think he’s going to hurt me. But what does it mean that I can get hurt by him? What am I?”

“Oh, honey, you’re just Buffy,” Tara says, pulling her into a hug.

“But I have to be wrong for the chip to not work,” Buffy says, a few tears starting to fall.

“What did Spike say?” Veronica asks.

“I don’t think that occurred to him really,” Buffy says. “He was all pout-y that I got freaked out, thinking it was about him. Then the fighting started and then the…other stuff.”

“You literally roundhouse kicked your way through foreplay right up to the good stuff?” Veronica asks.

Buffy gives her a look.

“This isn’t a dish session about sex, Veronica. This is a major life crisis in the life of one recently dead Buffy Summers.”

“But the sex was…” Veronica prompts.

“Better than ever,” Buffy says, giving in.

“I’m gonna do some research,” Tara says. “I’ll find out about the chip. Okay?”

“Me too,” Veronica says. “On the non-magic side.”

“You left Spike okay, right?” Tara asks.

Veronica sits up because the thought hadn’t occurred to her.

“Well…yeah. He’s stuck in the house cause of the sun but he’s alive and he’s…satiated,” says Buffy.

“You ran away, didn’t you?” Veronica asks.

“I couldn’t help it. I don’t know why we did that. It was too much too fast and then the whole thing about the chip crashed into my head and I had to pull a runner,” Buffy says.

“I’m glad you came to us,” Veronica says and gives her a hug.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Buffy says softly.

Veronica holds her close and exchanges worried glances with Tara over Buffy’s head and she’s hoping this isn’t the harbinger to something terrible. She doesn’t think this is over yet. Any of it.


	9. Spike and the Trip to Rack's Place

Spike’s not sure whether to be happy or alarmed. It’s a constant see-saw these days, really. He’s been just barely hanging on for months now waiting for Buffy to make up her bloody mind. Then she goes and does things like kiss him as if her life depends on them remaining locked at the lips. Not likely, but he wouldn’t mind. Still, she decides to be with him and tells all her friends and then his chip has to go and make a cameo appearance in the horror movie that is their lives.

He doesn’t really know what happened that night. Okay, he knows, he was a most willing participant, but he’s not sure how it went from chip fighting to the best sex he’s ever had in his life. There had just been a few hysterical moments and then the Slayer’d gone for his nose and he’d just taken it for a few moments before his indignation and instincts had kicked in and they went at it for a while before she changed the game and attacked his lips instead.

He’s not really regretting that. The first time was all fire and rush and need. The second he’d taken his time. The third and fourth, well, suffice it to say that they’ve definitely had their moments in the past, but they’d never destroyed a whole house before.

He’s grinning now as he remembers and every second spent remembering makes him more hopeful. Even if she did run out on him after. That’s the only part that makes him nervous. He doesn’t think that she can possibly think that he’s dangerous. Not after that. No…and now the wheels in his head are really turning…it must be because she’s worried about going too fast and what it means for her that his chip doesn’t work on her.

He gets to the house and finds Dawn buzzing about the place happy over her time spent with Tara and looking forward to some movie date with Willow. Red’s actually upstairs with a recently arrived Mac and they’re preparing to go out.

He might just get an evening with his girls if he plays his cards right even if Buffy is having a hard time looking him in the eyes.

“You gonna start blushing?” he asks Buffy in a low voice upon Dawn’s finally exiting the room to order pizza.

“Shut up, Spike,” she says, but he can see the worry lines furrowing.

“Having second thoughts?” he asks, forcing himself to be casual.

“Not about…us,” she says, “doing a runner aside. Sorry about that. But about me maybe.”

“What’s wrong with you?” he suggests.

“Hello, not reading as human here,” she says.

“According to some stupid government chip that really should be short-circuiting out about now,” he says grumpily, not exactly ever pleased with the memory that he has the chip at all.

“You’re not helping with that train of thought,” she points out.

He sits down on the couch and pulls her down with him.

“You’re Buffy,” he says. “I’ve never studied anyone the way I study you and you’re you. Bloodied, bowed, but not defeated.”

“Have you been reading poetry again?” she asks wearily.

“If you remember that, you’re definitely her,” he says, recalling the memory of her catching him reading Christina Rosetti with a little embarrassment.

“Tell me so,” she says, looking up at him with pleading in her eyes. “Tell me I’m me. That I’m not wrong. That what I want isn’t wrong.”

“You’re Buffy,” he says again with even more conviction. “The best Slayer and woman that ever hit this planet. Whatever happened, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong. We’ll do some research, figure it out.”

“Tara and Veronica are on it,” she says, and the guarded weariness goes up around her again like a shield.

It doesn’t matter because there’s a bang and a yelp from the upstairs and both of them are on their feet and up the stairs immediately.

Spike doesn’t recognize the naked bird sitting on Willow’s bed but Buffy apparently does.

“Amy?” she says in disbelief.

“De-ratted and fancy free,” Willow says proudly.

Mac’s standing there with a worried expression on her face and Spike can’t help but agree.

“Um, so everything’s okay then?” Buffy asks.

“Definitely,” Willow assures her.

Spike isn’t assured. The way the witch has been casting around the magic lately it’s a wonder they haven’t all been turned into toads. He can’t blame Tara for moving out at all.

He and Buffy head back downstairs and Spike slips Dawn a few crumpled bills from his poker earnings so they can pay for the pizza. He doesn’t let Buffy see because she’s worried enough without remembering her precarious financial situation.

“What are we going to watch?” Dawn asks, practically bouncing like a puppy at the prospect of spending time with her big sister.

“You choose, Dawnie,” Buffy says, obviously forcing a smile.

The witches all come down the stairs and they’re dressed for going out. Spike isn’t sure that’s such a great idea, but what does he know?

“How have you been?” Buffy asks Amy awkwardly.

“Rat,” she says jerkily like she’s not used to human movements yet. “You?”

“Dead,” Buffy offers.

“Oh,” says Amy.

“Veronica going with you guys?” Buffy asks.

“No, she’s out with Logan,” Mac tells her. “I’m getting shafted for the boyfriend.”

“Well, have fun,” Buffy says.

“We will,” Willow says and smiles way too perkily for someone who has just been broken up with.

They leave and Buffy fills him in on the whole ‘how Amy became a rat’ story.

“I remember things more now,” she says. “Before it was so hard to pull out a memory and now things are just there again.”

“That good?” he asks.

“Sometimes,” she says enigmatically and then sits down and lets Dawn talk about the movie.

It’s a good night. Really good. Spike’s always aware of the little dips and shifts in the conversation where his girls are concerned, but it’s the best night they’ve had since Buffy died. They talk, they make fun of the movie, Buffy’s practically sitting in his lap, and Dawn’s practically glowing.

He’s practically perfectly happy and isn’t it a good thing he doesn’t have a soul to lose?

So then Dawn disappears upstairs to homework and bed and he and Buffy head off to the cemetery.

Patrol’s good, only a few vamps to dust, and he wonders if he should either ask her to come back to his crypt or invite himself back to the house.

“You’re coming back to the house,” she tells him before he can even say anything.

“So you can have your wicked way with me?” he says with a leer on his face.

“Something like that,” she says. “I can’t leave Dawn by herself much longer and who knows when Willow will get back.”

“You think it’s a good idea for her to be casting transfiguration magic around like that?” Spike asks.

“No,” says Buffy.

“Nor me,” he agrees.

“What can I do about it?” Buffy asks, sounding defeated.

“Dunno,” he says honestly.

The girls aren’t there when they get back so Spike follows Buffy up the stairs and opens Dawn’s door to check on her.

“How is she?” Buffy asks, looking a little annoyed, like she should have thought of that.

“Bit’s sleeping,” he says, sliding his duster off.

“Then we should be quiet,” she says, reaching for him.

He goes to her willingly, sliding his arms around her, reaching up his hands to run his fingers through the hair he loves like the sunshine he never sees. Her own hands slide up his shirt and he steps back a second to pull it off.

Then he kisses her again, drinking in the heady flavor and scent of Slayer, of Buffy. He feels warm, like he never does except when he’s with her, and she’s making him feel like throwing her on the bed and making her scream.

But he lowers her down gently instead and she arches her back after he removes her own shirt. Then he’s back to kissing and feeling and tasting and it’s only this close to ever being enough of her.

When he wakes up the next morning the blinds are closed and he isn’t dust which is nice. They’d perfected a system over the months of their relationship before she’d died and he’s glad that’s something she recalls easily.

Unfortunately, he remembers he’s supposed to meet Veronica at the Magic Box and reluctantly slides out of bed, away from the warm Slayer in his arms.

“Why are you going?” she asks, still half asleep, and he knows she would hate how adorable and cute she sounds.

“Gotta meet Veronica, love,” he says. “See you tonight, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says and she’s asleep again. 

He’s glad because she doesn’t get enough sleep as it is and their new relationship is either going to make that worse or better.

He runs for the sewers and then makes his way through the tunnels up through the basement and into the Magic Box.

Anya greets him and is obviously a little bit too perky for someone up that early, but he thinks that some sort of perkiness spell automatically activates every time she comes into contact with money.

Veronica’s already stretching and he shrugs off his duster again.

“Sorry, pet,” he says, “overslept.”

“Or oversexed,” she says.

“I hope you’re getting what I’m getting cause it’s bloody good,” he tells her, smirk firmly in place.

“When we’re not arguing that’s what we’re doing,” she says and sighs.

“Not good enough for you?” Spike asks.

“That’s good enough for me,” she says emphatically. “The fighting, not so much.”

“Still want me to talk to him?” Spike inquires.

“Please,” Veronica says. “Just tell him why me learning to fight is good.”

He nods and her phone rings and she looks at it.

“I gotta take this,” she says. “It’s Mac and I just want to say bye before she leaves.”

She answers the phone and he doesn’t try to listen to both ends but it’s inevitable, him being him.

“I’m sad you have to go so soon,” Veronica says.

“Got that hard taskmaster called homework on my back. Listen, Veronica, you know what I told you about Willow?” Mac says.

Spike’s ears perk up.

“Yeah?” says Veronica.

“Something has to be done. She made a rat a woman and then the two of them transformed the Bronze into their own personal dance hall/strip club and then I don’t even know what they did after that because I came back to the dorms,” Mac says.

“Um, on a magical scale of one to ten how bad is that?” Veronica asks.

“Eleven,” Spike says and she glances at him quickly.

“Uh huh. Okay, so I’ll tell Buffy and maybe Giles will get back to me. I’m not a witch, Mac, I don’t know what to do.”

“I know, but you’re there and something has to be done,” Mac repeats. “I’ve only been doing this for six months, but I know that’s not right.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Veronica says.

“You’re welcome,” Mac says. “Tell Logan hi for me.”

“Wallace for me.” They hang up and Veronica turns back to Spike, looking worried. “What should I do?”

“Watcher’s all well and good but he’s across the pond,” Spike tells her and he knows his expression matches hers. “Glinda’s your source for good magic.”

“I don’t want to worry her,” Veronica says.

“It might worry her a whole lot more when Red does something so stupid none of us come back from it,” Spike points out.

“I guess. Will you tell Buffy?”

“Course, pet,” he says.

They finish up their sparring session and Veronica leaves for the campus and Spike goes back to his crypt. He’s worried and doesn’t really know what to do. He’s tired of being responsible and taking care of things. All he really wants to do is shag Buffy and watch telly and maybe cause a little mayhem somewhere. Dawn could stop in sometimes. Maybe Veronica and Tara. If Veronica brings Logan it wouldn’t be so bad. Bollocks, he’s so intertwined with all these humans, it’s pathetic.

He goes to her house that night and finds Dawn out with Willow to the movies. 

“Veronica went, too,” Buffy says and that relieves him a bit.

He doesn’t really want his Bit alone with the witch right now.

Patrol’s short and sweet but when they get home they find the recently de-ratted Amy going through Willow’s room and no Dawn or Willow anywhere to be seen despite the fact that they should have been home hours ago. Buffy, acquainted now with the events of the night before, slams Amy up against the wall.

“Where’s Willow?” she asks in her rather impressive Slayer voice. The other girl squirms and says something about having permission before Buffy slams her again. “Where would she go? Where would she take my sister?”

“R-Rack’s,” the former rat replied and slumps to the floor.

“Bloody hell,” Spike swears.

“You know it?” Buffy asks him.

“Bad magic, let’s go.”

He explains on the way and Buffy looks fit to kill.

He strains with all his senses to find the entrance to Rack’s place. It moves all the time and it’s a little while before he finds it.

They’re not there. Rack tells them they’ve been and gone and Spike really doesn’t like the way Rack talks about Dawn.

He’s going to kill Willow for bringing her here.

When they come back out they can hear screams and don’t need to look at each other to hurry toward them.

What they find is a crashed car and flames licking around the edges. Willow’s lying on the ground while a demon leans over her.

“Find Dawn!” Buffy tells him and launches herself at the demon.

He heads for the car and finds Dawn cowering inside, cradling her arm. Veronica’s unconscious in the back seat. 

“Spike!” Dawn cries in relief. “Willow, she-”

“I know. Big sis is here, we’re gonna look after you. You hurt other than the arm?”

“No. I’m okay,” says Dawn.

“Get out of the car and go a safe distance. I’m gonna get Private Eye here,” Spike says.

Dawn scrambles out of the car and Spike rips off the back door and tosses it aside. Veronica’s bleeding from the forehead, but he doesn’t think she has more than a mild concussion. He pulls her out and carries her to where Dawn is anxiously waiting.

“Is she okay?” Dawn asks nervously.

“We’ll see.” He puts her down gently and slaps her cheeks. “Veronica, wake up, luv.”

Her eyes flutter open and she peers at him, unfocused.

“Spike?” she says.

“Stay awake for me, luv. You remember what happened?” Spike asks.

She nods and sits up. Spike remembers she probably has her phone on her and gets it from her pocket and dials 911.

There’s a cracking sound behind them and Spike looks up to see Willow, practically glowing with magic, slay the demon and then collapse. Then Buffy leads a crying Willow over to them. The witch is sobbing out apologies and Spike guesses this is her rock bottom. Frankly, he doesn’t really care. Only consideration for his girls is stopping him from attempting to rip her head off. Chip or no chip. Buffy looks like she wants to comfort her but really can’t. Willow’s also bleeding from the forehead but he can see she’ll be fine. Veronica’s eyes are fluttering as she tries to stay awake and Dawn, after slapping Willow, is refusing to look at her or acknowledge her presence even though the witch keeps reaching for her and saying she’s sorry.

“Back off, Willow,” Buffy finally says, shielding her sister.

“I should have- left…taken her away,” Veronica struggles to say.

Buffy shushes her and they can hear the sirens now.

It’s all a big bustle and mess at that point. There are a lot of inquiries but Spike melts into the background and Buffy answers them as best she can. He doesn’t want to put that on her, but he can’t exactly give an address and ID to the cops.

They load everyone up into the ambulance and he signals Buffy that he’ll follow.

When he gets there and they let him in, it turns out that they’ll all be fine. Logan, as Veronica’s emergency contact, has arrived and is making a nuisance out of himself, but Spike figures the boy probably has the right to.

Logan takes Veronica back to the dorms and she even walks herself out of the hospital after apologizing to Buffy for not taking better care of Dawn and Spike knows it wasn’t her fault. He’ll get the full story from her later.

Willow’s silent all the way home and Dawn still won’t talk to her.

Willow falls asleep, exhausted, but she keeps making promises to never use magic again. Spike doesn’t know if she means it or not but he hopes so, no matter how difficult he knows that will be.

Buffy takes care of Dawn, giving her ice cream, and then putting her to bed as well.

“Don’t leave me alone with her,” Dawn says over and over again.

“I won’t,” Buffy says and he’s never seen such a fierce look on her face.

Not even when she was trying to kill him.

Dawn doesn’t want Buffy to leave her but the pain medication she’s gotten from the doctor starts to work and the girl goes to sleep.

After locking up he goes back up to Buffy’s room and finds her sitting on her bed, staring blankly. It’s oddly reminiscent of the night she came back.

“I can’t do this,” she says dully. “How do I do this?”

“I’ll help,” he says and she closes her eyes.

“Just hold me,” she finally says.

He does.


	10. Logan and the Invisible Girl

Logan’s not sure about this. Sure, he’s a physical guy and he’s been in his share of fights and, thanks to Aaron, he’s no stranger to pain, but putting himself in the direct path of a vampire, albeit one that can’t hurt him, seems crazy.

“What’s your problem?” Spike asks, laughter in his eyes.

“You’re enjoying this,” Logan remarks, ducking again. “You sure you’re not evil?”

“Wrong question, mate,” Spike says, tripping Logan so that he lands on his back and Logan spares a thought to wonder why that doesn’t seem to hurt him. 

He’s not an expert on government behavior-modification chips and he doesn’t really want to be.

“What’s the right question?” Logan asks

“No such thing,” Spike says, extending a hand.

Logan takes it and leans against the wall to catch his breath.

They’re in Buffy’s basement because Anya’s commandeered the Magic Box training room for a Sunnydale Chamber of Commerce meeting and Logan’s beginning to think he should have canceled. After all, he only set this up because of Veronica’s remarks and jabs that he should. The fact that she’s just been in an accident after hanging out with a supernaturally high witch on the rebound really has nothing to do with his situation. Really.

“Second thoughts, Scottie?” Spike asks him with a knowing look in his eye.

“Do you think that Veronica puts too much on herself?” he asks.

“Probably,” Spike says carefully. “We all do that sometimes. Still, it’s her decision, innit?”

“I’m assuming that my pointing out that I’m her boyfriend doesn’t mean anything?” Logan says.

“Oh, it means something,” Spike says. “But when someone you love makes up their mind, best not to make waves to soothe your own ego.”

“I won’t watch her get herself killed,” Logan says strongly.

“I won’t let it happen either,” Spike says. “But every bird’s gotta fly eventually.”

“And if someone else isn’t ready to fly with her?” Logan asks.

“He better let go or learn to fly real fast,” Spike replies.

“Everyone in this town speaks so prettily and represses so handily,” Logan says, getting back into position.

“You’ve no bloody idea.” Spike laughs.

They spar for a while and Logan’s learning so much his eyes are practically boggling. It’s fist and fangs for Spike and Logan feels a little bit more alive and he kinda gets why Veronica likes this. Still, he’s breathing hard and sore and bruised and then he lands a lucky blow and Spike jumps too far, crashing into the washer and dryer.

“We’re bollocksed now,” Spike says, now in vamp face, after looking at the huge dent in the machines and the broken step stool that’s lying splintered all over the floor.

“What was that?” comes a strange voice from upstairs and Logan frowns.

“Wha-” he starts to say.

A short, round woman comes down the stairs and stares at them with surprise on her face.

“What is this, Miss Summers?” she asks, turning around.

Spike shakes his head, getting rid of his game face, and turns back around, a polite smile on his face.

“I apologize, Miss Kroger,” comes Buffy’s tired voice. “This is my boyfriend S-William and our friend Logan. I’ve been allowing them to use our basement as a place to practice self-defense and I must have neglected to let them know you were coming today.”

“Considering I don’t think you remembered yourself that isn’t surprising,” the woman says disdainfully.

“We’re very sorry we disturbed you,” Spike says, almost poshly and Logan gives him a quick glance. “I did forget you were coming today and I had a little bit of an accident. I hope you weren’t too startled.”

“No-no,” Miss Kroger says, looking askance at the dent and the mess. “You’re not hurt, I trust.”

“Nothing but my pride,” Spike says gallantly.

“Very well, shall we continue our interview?” Miss Kroger asks Buffy. “Perhaps your boyfriend could join us. Does he live here?”

“No, he has his own place,” Buffy says quickly. “He’s a very good influence on Dawn. He helps her with her homework.”

“Admirable, I’m sure,” the other woman says, her voice fading away.

“Bloody hell,” Spike says as soon as they’re out of hearing range. “I’m absolutely never going to- bollocksed isn’t the half- bloody hell.”

“You forgot she was coming? Who is she?” Logan asks.

“Social worker,” Spike says. “After the car accident they got all concerned about Dawn living here. Especially with Joyce’s death and Buffy’s disappearance-presumed-death and all the custody shifts and Buffy’s lack of a job and Dawn’s cutting school and bloody hell.”

“Doesn’t look good, does it?” Logan says.

“No. I’m gonna go up there and try and suss it out, face the music, yeah?”

“I’ll clean up down here,” Logan tells him

“Thanks, mate,” Spike says and leaves.

Logan quickly clears up as much of the mess as he can and tries to quietly un-dent the washer, but it’s beyond him. 

Eventually Spike sticks his head back down.

“All clear,” he says.

Logan emerges into the kitchen and apologizes to Buffy.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, looking defeated. “Spike may have salvaged it with his ‘charming foreign gentleman’ act but I don’t see how that’s going to work long-term when he doesn’t even show up as living.”

“I wish I could-" Logan says and stops as a thought occurs to him. 

It might not solve everything, but it will definitely do something.

“Everybody wishes,” Buffy says and then sighs. “Don’t sweat it, kid, this is all we do here.”

“How much older than me are you exactly?” he asks and she gives him a ghost of a smile.

“Spike, will you talk to Dawn?” Buffy asks. “She’s pulling a wiggins on me. And Willow’s hyperventilating in the living room.”

“Why?” Logan asks.

“Cold turkey on the magic,” Spike says. “Withdrawals a bit, and then the guilt and then the break up. All rightly deserved if you ask me.”

Logan nods. He can relate a bit.

“At least we did a magical-going-out-of-business-clear-out before she got here,” Buffy says. “Apart from the sage that we apparently smoke from sun-up to sun-down according to Miss Social Services. Anyway…Dawn?”

“Bit might do better hearing from you,” Spike tells Buffy. 

Buffy shakes her head.

“I just can’t right now. I need to clear my head. Just watch her for me, k?” Buffy asks.

Spike nods and goes to kiss her, but she turns her head so he gets her cheek.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, Logan takes his leave and goes to take a shower and then meet up with Veronica.

She’s on her laptop and he idly looks at the screen before kissing the top of her head.

It’s an email to Giles, detailing the latest instances of Willow’s magical life. He knows Veronica is getting frustrated with the man’s lack of response to her inquiries for help but she beats him to the punch of conversational opener.

“Why are you so cheery?” she asks, standing up. “I heard about this morning.”

“Get out your stockings, children, because Christmas is coming early this year,” he tells her.

“My, Santa, what little belly you have,” she says, walking into his outstretched arms. “Why the generosity kick? What did you do?”

“I haven’t done it yet, but I’m happy and pleased to announce the latest investment I’ve decided to partake in,” Logan says.

“Which is?” Veronica asks.

“A trust fund for the Summers girls,” Logan announces. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. My lawyers are always after me to do stuff like that. And it’s helping out my friends. Did I do good or what?”

He leans in for a kiss but doesn’t get one. Instead Veronica is looking at him half-exasperated and half-concerned.

“Logan…” she begins.

“What?” he asks, getting annoyed. “What did I do now?”

“You’re doing it again,” she says. “Using money to solve all your problems. Other people’s problems. That’s always your solution but money can’t magically make everything better again.”

“That is not why I’m doing it,” he says, hurt.

“How is this different than you wanting to finance my college career?” she asks.

“These girls need the money. Dawn’s on the brink of getting taken away by Social Services!” Logan argues.

“Buffy’s not going to feel like she can make it on her own if you become her sugar daddy,” Veronica says.

“Interesting term, my little jaded pet. I wonder what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, grow up,” she tells him, frustration oozing out of her voice. “I just think you should offer to maybe look after Dawn once in a while or stop trashing her basement, yeah, Spike told me. That’s what she needs. She needs to be independent.”

“Now you sound like Giles,” Logan says, ignoring the low blow about the basement he would never have been in if it weren’t for her, having gotten the full lowdown on the Watcher’s exit from Veronica, Spike, and Buffy.

“He took away her emotional support, not her financial support,” Veronica says.

“I’m noticing less and less money crossing the Atlantic.”

“Buffy will need to get a job like the rest of us,” Veronica says.

“That’s harsh. She already has one that doesn’t pay her anything,” Logan says, a little surprised at how cold Veronica is being.

“Granted, but that doesn’t mean you should flaunt your own wealth over her,” Veronica replies. 

“Sometimes people who have more also have the responsibility to share the wealth,” say Logan.

“Emphasis on share, not control and fix.”

“You’re such a hypocrite, Veronica,” he tells her, really mad now. “You give up everything, move to this town, all for Buffy, and now that I want to help, too, you’re suddenly not wanting to share the giving train.”

She opens her mouth and then shuts it again, but she doesn’t back down and he’s so mad he almost wants to walk away.

The phone rings, breaking the tension, or at least bending it.

“Buffy’s been turned invisible,” Veronica announces succinctly after she hangs up.

It’s sad but that’s almost normal for him now.

“How?” he asks.

“They don’t know. Willow would like my help,” Veronica says.

“You should go. Use your own natural abilities to help. I’ll use mine,” he says bitterly.

“Logan-" she says, reaching for him.

“No,” he says. “You don’t trust me and I’m starting to think you never will. It’s just one more thing you can chalk up in your Big Book of Disillusionment.”

He walks out the door and calls his lawyer. He’s doing this whether she wants him to or not.

He has the papers sent to him express but it’s late before he gets them and he goes back over to Buffy’s house.

He spends the hours in between breaking things in his room and pacing up and down.

He’s trying to see this from Veronica’s point of view, he really is. But all he can think about it how much she always assumes the worse of him. It’s really beginning to wear him down. Maybe giving her space had been the right choice after all. Maybe she’s been right about their relationship all along.

When he gets back to Buffy’s he finds Dawn there by herself.

“Where’s the rescue squad?” he asks her.

“Out rescuing,” she says glumly.

“Do they know anything?” Logan asks.

“Willow figured out where the energy happened, then Buffy wandered off or something. Veronica thinks it could be similar to that freezing security guard thing a few weeks ago. She’s tracking that lead down. Anyway…they have to reverse what happened or Buffy could disappear forever. Xander and Anya went to find her, Tara’s working on a spell, Veronica and Willow went to confront the nerds or whatever.”

Dawn recites this all practically monotone but Logan can see the frustration bubbling underneath the surface.

“You sound pretty calm about it,” he remarks casually.

“It’s not like Buffy cares about staying here,” Dawn says wearily. “I’m just a responsibility to her and maybe now she won’t have to worry about it. I’ll just go live somewhere else.”

“I doubt it,” Logan says. “See, I got to know your sister pretty well last year and there’s no way she’s ever letting you go anywhere, no matter what dimension she’s just been pulled out of.”

“Says you,” Dawn says, awkwardly trying to hide her tears.

“It’s hard being overlooked, isn’t it?” he says instead of continuing his point or maybe this is his point. “Feeling like you’re not worth someone else’s attention. Wanting to do practically anything to get them to see you. Even if it’s in a negative way.”

She looks at him, eyes wide.

“W-what are you talking about?” Dawn asks.

“Oh, me,” he says casually. “I grew up that way. A bit of a smart aleck, a bit of a jerk, a bit of a troublemaker. My first girlfriend and I were a lot alike that way. Her parents were a little bit too heavy on the ‘loving their son’ side of life. She tended to act out. Cost her her life in the end, though it shouldn’t have.”

“Are you trying to scare me into giving it back?” she asks and then clasps her hand over her mouth.

“Give what back?” he asks as casually as he can.

“Jewelry from the Magic Box, lipstick from the mall. Maybe a leather jacket or two,” Dawn says guiltily and Logan thinks she’s probably holding back.

“Ahh, shoplifting. Done my fair share of that. Didn’t need to, of course,” Logan says airily. “I had the money. It was just more fun than the other way, more attention getting.”

“I’m not a baby,” Dawn says angrily.

“Nope, neither was I. I still wanted my mom to at least act like she cared about what happened to me,” Logan says as if she hasn’t just blown up.

Dawn looks sideways at him.

“Did she?” she asks.

“Not enough,” is his short answer.

No matter how much he wants to help, he’s not going into that particular locked room in his brain.

“I don’t want to get taken away,” Dawn says in a small voice.

“Then stop stealing,” he says. “Study. Don’t sneak out. It sucks, but those are the things that are making the government look twice about you being here.”

“If Buffy just-” Dawn starts.

“I know,” he says, daring to put his arm around her, minding her hurt arm. “I can’t control what Buffy does, but I promise I’ll help you guys.”

“What can you do?” she asks, leaning into him.

“I may not be magic, but I am rich,” he says, smiling down at her. 

She smiles back and then looks down.

“Are you going to tell Buffy?” she asks.

“I think you should,” he tells her. “I’ll give you a head start and a warning before I do it.”

“Thanks,” she says and pulls away from him. He senses the conversation is now closed. “You wanna watch tv?”

He watches cartoons with Dawn until everyone piles back into the house.

Buffy’s visible and sporting a new haircut which Spike seems to be disappointed with though they’ve obviously been doing something together cause Spike’s smirking and Buffy’s flushed from more than just kicking bad guy ass.

Veronica’s avoiding looking at him and Willow’s looking hopefully in Tara’s direction but the other witch makes her excuses and leaves soon after they get back.

Willow excuses herself and goes upstairs and Xander and Anya go home where Anya will likely continue to wax glorious about the seating chart for their wedding. From her description Logan really hopes he doesn’t end up at table four.

Logan pulls Buffy aside.

“Logan-" Veronica says.

“I’m doing this,” he tells her and turns back to Buffy.

“What’s up?” Buffy asks.

“Apparently you and Spike,” he says with a smile.

“I dare you to get hit with an invisibility ray,” she says. “It’s fun.”

“Apart from the disappearing forever part,” he says.

“Yeah, apart from that,” Buffy agrees. “But you wanted to tell me something. Very emphatically?”

“This is for you,” he says and hands her the papers.

She opens them quizzically and reads for a few minutes.

“I don’t get it,” she says.

He rolls his eyes and speaks low so Veronica can’t hear them.

“I set up a trust fund for you and Dawn. I fully encourage you to get a job or go back to school when you’re ready but you guys don’t have to worry about money for the time being and you can concentrate more on slaying if you need to. I think it will help with Social Services, too. Also, I think Dawn might be ready to stop acting out so much.”

Buffy’s face is beyond his power to describe. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen such a range of emotions.

“Logan- I…”

“I just want to help,” he says quickly. “It’s not a big deal for me.”

“But it’s everything to me,” she says, looking into his eyes. “Thank you.”

She hugs him and he hugs her back and he knows, he knows without a doubt, that this is the right thing to do. That this is the kind of thing he’s supposed to do with his money. He doesn’t care what Veronica thinks, this is right.

“I fully expect to be protected from the monsters of the night in return,” he tells her, joking.

“You’ve moved to the top of the priority save list,” she tells him, wiping tears from her eyes. “I have to tell Dawn and Spike. Thank you, Logan.”

“We can work out the legalese so you understand how it all works and get access to everything later,” he says. 

She nods and goes back into the next room. Logan hesitates on whether or not to go back with her, but he takes the coward’s way out and goes to leave.

Except Veronica’s standing by the front door.

“Pleasant day, honey?” he asks, trying his best to sound jocular.

“I finally got to use my natural skills,” she says. “Kicked supernatural ass.”

“Villains all locked away then?” he asks.

“Well, they…may have managed to kidnap me after I tracked their van to their secret hideout and then used me as bait to get Buffy to come get me and kill her,” she says all in a rush.

"What?" he asks.

"Seriously, I tracked them down and then they were all invisible. But I managed to get them where Buffy could beat them up and she knew who they were, so it should be easy to round them up. Maybe. And I'm fine. Not even bruised."

“Mysteries aren’t solved in a day,” he says finally because he can't start yelling at her again about putting herself in danger. 

It just doesn't work like that. He's had his say and unless she really does something stupid, fighting about it won't help. At least that's what his tired brain and heart are telling him. Besides, he's still mad at her.

Still, then there’s awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out.

“Excuse me?” he says, not believing what he’s hearing. 

He even puts a hand to his ear.

“I’m sorry,” she says and he knows how much she hates apologizing. “You did good.”

“Thanks for the affirmation,” he says, but doesn’t say anything else.

“I have the tendency…to get caught in the past,” she says, fidgeting. “I forget progress people have made cause I don’t want them to hurt me again. And I just have this inbred Neptune prejudice against anyone with more than a dollar to their name. Even my boyfriend. I’ve seen people use money to do horrible things. But you didn’t.”

“Nope,” he says. “Horrible things free.”

“Free?” she says, raising an eyebrow.

He throws her a bone and allows it.

“I’ve done my share,” he says, “but I’ve been trying. Really hard and everything. Turned in my black hat and shaved my moustache.”

“I know,” she says, “and I’m sorry I don’t give you enough credit. I hate feeling like I’m the one failing here. I still think Buffy needs to stand on her own, but I guess you were right when you said I was being a hypocrite. I’m going to try and not do that anymore. To listen to your opinion and to let you have it without being all critical. Trying to. You know something that I don’t always get, that we all need somebody sometimes.”

He could be wrong but it seems like something bad breaks between the two of them when she says this. All he knows is that he feels better and that he feels hope and her words are triggering something else in his head.

“Lean on me,” he starts singing and she laughs, “when you’re not strong.”

“And I’ll be the one,” she sings along, “to help you carry on.”

“Lean on me for it won’t be long till I’m gonna need somebody to lean on,” they sing together.

“Singing demon back?” Spike asks, sticking his head into the entryway.

“Thankfully, no,” Veronica says.

Logan smiles at the memory of the multiple copies of Veronica’s song he’s got stashed everywhere. He’s pretty sure even Mac can’t find them all and one day Veronica will be in more of a position to appreciate having it.

“I’ll teach you to kick my ass any day,” Spike says to Logan, sticking out his hand for him to shake. “She’d never take my money, but this…thanks.”

Logan shakes his hand and then holds out his hand to Veronica. She puts her hand in his and he feels at peace like he hasn’t since he came to Sunnydale.

“We’re off now,” he tells Spike.

“Happy trails,” the vampire says, winking at them.

“Invisibility sex,” Logan says and Spike laughs at him.

He opens the door and walks out with Veronica.

“I love you,” she tells him and he actually believes her.


	11. Buffy and the David Lynch Demons

Buffy has some sort of sickness, she thinks. Some sort of avoidance and self-sabotage sickness.

It’s like she’s on a great big see saw and she never knows whether she’s going up or hurtling back down. One day she can snuggle on the couch with Spike and watch movies with her sister and the next week she can barely bring herself to speak to her best friend and spends all her time obsessing about why her boyfriend’s chip doesn’t register her as human.

There’s only one continually good thing and that’s the money that Logan’s given her. It does mean she’s spending way more time these days with lawyers and bankers. It’s so very grown-up and she doesn’t think she’s really ready for that. She’s only twenty-one, just now able to drink and everything, but she’s saved the world countless times and died twice. Probably matures a person.

So here she is, Mature-Twenty-One-Year-Old Buffy with a trust fund and a mortgage, newly resurrected, and hunting for vampires.

And she’s still struggling with so many things that the money can’t fix.

About the only thing she can handle right now is being with Spike. By being she means being. She doesn’t really talk to him if she can help it. It’s more like a bad habit she’s fallen into that she consciously doesn’t think about. She just knows that it’s better when he’s making her every nerve ending feel like it’s on fire and not when he’s trying to get her to relate to her little sister.

She just doesn’t want to look Dawnie in the face until she knows more about how she came back. She doesn’t want to be Willow’s moral compass when she doesn’t know if she has one herself. She doesn’t want to be happy for Xander and Anya when she’s sure she’ll never have a normal relationship. She’s just lost and the only thing that feels real is when Spike’s body is melded to hers.

When she steps through the door back into her house she knows she has to change things. She’s going to try. She’s the Slayer, she can-can-can.

How-how-how?  
“Aw, rough day?” Willow asks, who’s been a lot better since the events of The Day Buffy Went Invisible And Actually Felt Free For A While.

“Kinda,” Buffy admits.

“You've been going at it too hard, Buffy,” Xander says. “We hardly ever see you, what with the sudden riches and pounding the big evil.”

“You are looking a little pounded,” Anya says with her usual tact. “Just around the eyes.”

Buffy can’t respond to this, but she’s All New and Improved Buffy Who Interacts and Everything so she sits down.

“Hey, we're thinking of heading to the Bronze later. Wanna come, get all unwind-y?” Willow asks her hopefully.

“No, thanks. I think I'll stay here with Dawn. Curl up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and-” Dawn moves toward the door, picking up her jacket. “...listen to the cars honk? Where are you going?”

“I'm...going over at Janice's,” Dawns says, sounding annoyed.

“And I'm falling for that again because of the surprise lobotomy?” Buffy says.

“It's okay, I checked it out. Janice's mom is picking her up,” Willow says proudly, probably just happy Dawn hasn’t slapped her in a while and deigns to be in the same room as her.

Nobody holds a grudge like Buffy’s made-up sister. She knows from personal experience.

“I didn't think you'd care,” Dawn says sullenly. “You're never home, so...” 

“I know. I'm sorry. You know, but I-I'm here now. All visible and everything. Couldn't you just go to Janice's another night?” Buffy asks.

“Her mom's cooking Mexican. She's gonna teach me how to make real tortillas. Not like I knew you'd be around,” Dawn finishes sharply.

Dawn walks out the door leaving Buffy feeling like even less of a good person than when she walked in.

So she goes to the Bronze with her friends, at least half of them, and they dance and drink and she still ends up on the balcony, simply watching. She’s on the outside, has been for months, and each step forged back into the heart of her life is like trying to resurrect someone from the dead which is supposed to be really hard. Unless she’s the one getting resurrected, of course.

Still, she’s content to just stay up there, frozen, until she feels him enter the Bronze. She’s sure he can feel her, too. These days it’s almost like there’s an invisible rope connecting the two of them and the closer they get, the sharper it tugs around her gut. She’s not surprised to feel herself almost aching for him. If he can just get to her within the next five seconds, she can rip all his clothes off, public place or not, and feel-feel-feel her way to existence.

The thought scares her a little and she’s already feeling guilty enough about the way she’s using him, no matter how much he says he doesn’t mind it. She’s promised it would be different. But until she knows anything, until she knows what she is, she needs to be careful. 

So she runs, literally flees from him, out of the Bronze and across town, into a cemetery.

It doesn’t get better, that feeling in her insides, the squirming yearning for him. Instead, she just feels confused.

Then it all goes to hell.

There’s whirling and growling and she can see demons. Natural fighting stance set and then they’re suddenly gone, a girl standing in their place, looking terrified.

She pulls back and then there’s a shift and Spike’s there wiping blood off his upper lip.

“Ow! What the bloody hell did you do that for?” he asks.

Crack and he’s gone, the girl’s screaming again and Buffy whirls around, trying to find her.

Crack and Spike’s back, sidling up to her.

“You thought you could just slip off? Vampire, remember?” he says.

Crack and the demons are jumping at her. She kicks wildly, connecting solidly with someone and then gets knocked backward.

Crack and she’s on the ground, demon looming over her.

Crack and she’s standing, the girl’s face next to hers, asking her for help.

Crack and she’s on the ground, Spike offering her a hand up.

Crack and she’s somewhere else, fighting for her life.

It’s all mist and weird shapes and she’s so so confused, more reminiscent of the time she could hear everyone’s thoughts than anything else, and she clasps her hands to her ears.

“I’m okay, I’m not crazy,” she says, trying to convince herself.

Crack and the demons jump at her, she swings.

Crack and it’s the girl she backhands and sends flying, tumbling down the hill.

Crack and Spike’s standing there, looking satisfied with himself and the demon at his feet.

Buffy runs for the hill, scrambles down it, and falls to her knees at the bottom. This is it, it’s over, she’s Faith, she’s evil, she’s wrong, she won’t ever get back to that haven of perfection. 

Spike comes to a halt beside her and swears.

“We have to go,” he says immediately.

“What happened?” Buffy mumbles to herself.

“There's nothing you can do now. We have to go before someone sees you,” Spike replies urgently.

“What did I do?” is all she can say.

“We have to go now!” he says and she can feel him grabbing her and dragging her away. 

She’s in shock, she’s numb, she’s not this person, no, please, no.

“All right. Listen to me, Buffy.” He shakes her. “Buffy!”

“She's dead,” Buffy says hazily.

“It was an accident,” Spike argues.

“I killed her,” Buffy persists.

“I'm gonna get you home,” he says.

“No!” she cries out.

No, she can’t go home to safety and warmth and innocence because she came back wrong and that girl’s lying there, cold and dead and forgotten.

“I'm gonna get you home, and you're gonna crawl in your warm, comfy bed and stay there.” His voice gets soft and he folds her into his arms. “We're gonna sort this out. Trust me.”

She does, except she shouldn’t or can’t and she just wants to…

But she goes home with him, in a numb cloud, and she thinks she hears him on the phone, but she’s not sure exactly. The words trickle into her brain without her comprehension.

“Private Eye,” he says, “got a situation.” He says words, details the situation, spells out her crimes, and how can he expect Veronica to help when Buffy’s just committed an unforgiveable act? “Need you to ID her,” he says and she hears him through a long tunnel. “This smacks of something weird. Just figure out why that girl would be there, yeah? I gotta take care of Buffy.”

He puts her to bed and stays until she falls asleep. At least he’s there again when she wakes up.

She wakes up because she’s dreaming. Dreaming of him and the girl and stakes and handcuffs and the woods and crypts and oriental rugs. Every bit of it features her as the villain. She kills the girl and stakes Spike and she’s a gaping maw of need, sucking in everything, returning nothing, destroying everything in her wake.  
“Sh,” he tells her, sliding into her bed. “It’s okay, love. It’s over now.”

She doesn’t say anything, just kisses him in a desperate bid to forget, to push the images out of her mind.

Later on, he’s the one who sleeps and she slips out of the bed. She’s done running, done hiding, done pushing away consequences and life. She’s had her respite in the circle of his arms and the burn of his touch and now she can’t ignore what’s happened. What she’s done.

So she knows what she has to do and it’s hard, but, in a way, it’s so easy, so much easier than her life.  
“Hey,” she says, sitting on Dawn’s bed.

“What time is it?” Dawn asks, stirring sleepily.

“It's late. I just wanted...I love you. You know that, right?” Buffy asks. 

“What's wrong?” Dawn asks in alarm.

“I know I haven't been everything I should be - everything Mom was - but I love you. I always will,” Buffy says.

“Why are you talking like this? Buffy?”

“There was an accident. In the woods. A girl...she was hurt. I hurt someone.” Dawn hugs her but it isn’t enough. “There's something I have to do. I have to tell what I did. I have to go to the police.”

Dawn stiffens and pulls away.

“The police?”

“Dawnie, I have to.”

“But...what's going to happen?” Dawn asks.

“I don't know,” Buffy replies.

“They'll take you away. Won't they?” Dawn asks sharply.

“I'm sorry,” Buffy says.

Buffy looks down because she can’t bear to see the look of betrayal she’s receiving. She deserves it-deserves it-deserves it.

“No, you're not. You're never here. You can't even stand to be around me,” Dawn says bitterly.

“That is not true,” Buffy tries to say sincerely.

It is, but she can’t say that. It’s not why Dawn thinks it is anyway.

“You don't want to be here with me,” Dawn continues. “You didn't want to come back. I know that. You were happier where you were. You want to go away again.”

“Dawn...” she says helplessly.

What can she say? It’s all true, but she is trying. She was trying.

“Then go! You're not really here anyway.”

Dawn pushes past her and runs downstairs and all Buffy can hope is that she doesn’t wake Spike.

It’s not quite the goodbye she was looking for, but it’s all she’ll get so she goes.

Every step to the station is like lead in her heart, but it’s the easiest thing she’s ever done.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Spike. How typical.

“The right thing,” she says, pushing on.

The punch catches her by surprise and she falls down.

“Sorry, love, can't let you do that,” Spike says.

“I have to tell them what happened,” she says firmly, getting up.

“We don’t know what happened,” he snaps. “It’s an accident if anything.” 

“I killed that girl,” she says like a mantra.

“Demons in the woods? Time going wonky? They won't believe you,” Spike says.

“I’ll show them,” she replies.

“I’m taking care of it, Slayer,” Spike growls at her. “Just let it go. There isn't anything to connect this to you.”

“It doesn't matter,” she says.

“It wasn't your fault!” Spike protests.

“I killed her!” Buffy almost shouts.

“It was an accident. It just happened,” Spike says.

“Nothing just happens,” she says because that’s how she’s lived her life and she can’t let herself off the hook she’s strung others up on.

She starts to walk away but he grabs her arm.

“You're not going in there,” Spike says.

“I have to do this. Just let me go,” Buffy pleads.

“I can't. I love you. You are not throwing your life away over this,” Spike pleads right back.

His desperate voice gives her a moment of pause, but only a moment.

“It's not your choice,” she says finally.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Spike asks.

“A girl is dead because of me,” Buffy says slowly.

It’s a simple concept, why is he so unable to grasp it?

“And how many people are alive because of you?” he argues. “How many have you saved? One dead girl doesn't tip the scale.”

She can’t believe him. Sometimes he’s so different, but she can’t forget, can’t let herself forget, he’s a demon in a stolen body and he doesn’t know.

“That's all it is to you, isn't it? Just another body!” she spits out.

“Buffy-”

No, he can’t say her name like that. He can’t argue with her, placate her, treat her like a child, like she’s the one in the wrong. She knows she’s wrong-wrong-wrong. He’s a soulless vampire and she won’t let him.

So she attacks him. Her words are never good enough. All she’s ever had are her fists. Her fists and actions and fighting-fighting-fighting.

He blocks mostly, but he lets her beat him, and why won’t he just fight back!

“You can't understand why this is killing me, can you?” she asks desperately when her fists are finally no longer enough.

“Why don't you explain it?” he asks, still blocking.

“You can’t understand,” she says roughly, knocking him to the ground and punching his face. “You don’t have a soul. You don’t know what it means. You’ll never be able to-”

“Forget about me then,” he says raggedly, covering his face, but not making any attempt to throw her off. “What about Dawn, eh? What about your little sis and all she needs? How’s she gonna fair while you’re rotting in the big house? What’s gonna happen to her?”  
He can’t keep saying things like that. She doesn’t deserve Dawn.

“It’s not about her,” she says, pulling her arm back, but knowing she can’t make the blow.

She sags down and lets her tears fall on his face. He puts his arm around her.

“That’s it, let it all out. Put it all on me,” he says.

“Buffy!” comes a voice from behind her.

She turns and spies Veronica standing there with Logan, both looking rather horrified.

“What-what are you doing here?” Buffy asks.

“Spike asked me to figure out who that girl was. Her name is Katrina Silber,” Veronica says. “Apparently her last boyfriend was-”

“Warren,” Buffy says, pieces clicking in her head, tearing away the fog.

“That’s right. I don’t think it can be a coincidence that you were both there right then,” Veronica says gently.

“No, no,” Buffy says and sinks into herself. She’s wrong again. She’s not a murderer, but she’s still not good. “Spike, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s all right, love, I’m right as rain,” he tells her soothingly, running his hands up and down her arms.

He’s not, his face is purple and swollen and oozing blood and that’s all on her.

“I need to go home,” she gasps out. “Dawn.”

They exchange glances and take her home. Rather, Spike takes her home while Veronica and Logan go into the police station and file a report saying they found a girl dead in the woods.

Buffy isn’t quite sure how she gets to bed or what’s happened because all she knows is that it’s the next morning and Dawn still isn’t speaking to her after some initial tears and Spike’s face looks like he went ten rounds with Adam and lost badly. He tells her not to worry about it. 

“You always hurt the one you love, pet,” and she doesn’t like the way he says it.

She doesn’t want to hear that, doesn’t want to admit it. Doesn’t want it to be true for his sake. 

In the end she has to face everyone at the Magic Box and it’s Anya who finds the answer to some of the mysteries.

“The Rwasundi. Very rare. Um, its presence in our dimension causes a sort of...localized temporal disturbance.”

“So that's why time went all David Lynch?” Buffy asks slowly.

“Right,” says Anya, still looking in her book. “Uh, human perception is based on a linear chronology. Being exposed to the Rwasundi for more than a few seconds can cause, uh, vivid hallucinations. And a slight tingly scalp.”

“So that's it. These things just made you think you killed her,” Willow says and smiles like it’s all better now.

“She was probably dead long before you stumbled across her,” Xander tries as well.

“It wasn't the demons. It was Warren. He knew Katrina. He had something to do with it, I know it,” Buffy says, grasping hold of something tangible.

“Why are you so sure?” Tara asks quietly.

“You always hurt the one you love,” she says slowly, not daring to look at Spike.

Her head’s still a blur and she wants it to stop. Somehow, she figures, if she can bring Warren to justice, well, it might make her own guilt a little bit less.

The meeting breaks up but Tara lingers and asks to talk to Buffy alone.

“What’s up?” Buffy asks, trying to put on a brave face again.

“I wanted to tell you what I found out about the resurrection spell,” Tara says gently.

“What?” Buffy asks, not wanting to know, but needing, needing to know.  
“I-I've double checked everything. There's nothing wrong with you,” Tara replies.

Tara smiles like everything’s okay, but Buffy can’t believe it’s that simple.

“Then why can Spike hurt me?” Buffy asks.

“Well, I said that there was nothing wrong with you, but...you are different. Shifting you out of...f-f-from where you were…funneling your essence back into your body- i-it-it altered you on a basic molecular level. Probably just enough to confuse the sensors or whatever in Spike's chip. But it's all just surface-y physical stuff. It wouldn't have any more effect than...a bad sunburn.” 

“I didn't come back wrong?” she asks, and she can’t believe it.

“No, you're the same Buffy. With a deep, tropical, cellular tan,” Tara assures her.

“You must have missed something. Will you check again?”

Tara leans forward.

“Buffy, I-I promise, there's nothing wrong with you.”

“There has to be! This just can't be me, it isn't me. Why do I feel like this?”

She starts to cry and she can’t stop. She doesn’t cry often anymore, because tears don’t solve anything. They just sap your strength, but she can’t stop now because she is wrong even if she isn’t wrong and that means that there’s no solution, no easy answer.

Tara puts her arms around her and holds her and Buffy lets go for a while.

In the end she’s quiet and Tara’s murmuring soothing sounds into her ears and she falls asleep.

When she wakes up she’s in her own bed and Logan’s sitting beside her bed.

“Time demons still here?” she asks in confusion.

“Buffy-watch,” he says cheerfully, putting down what’s presumably some homework.

“If you’re doing homework then something’s definitely off,” she says, attempting to joke.

“She slays the room with her humor,” he remarks, giving her a glass of water.

“Puns are my gig,” she grumbles, sitting up. “So what happened?”

“Spike brought you home, asked one of us to stay with you until you woke up. I volunteered,” Logan said nobly.

“Brave soul,” she says. “Is it Buffy suicide watch or what?”

“Do you think that’s necessary?” he asks her seriously, studying her face.

“Dying would be nice, but I’m not going to make it easy,” she says.

“Why would you do that?” he asks her quietly.

“Turn myself in?” she clarifies.

“That for starters,” Logan replies. “Then beat Spike up and abandon Dawn and throw your life away.”

“Because I don’t think I deserve it,” she says, not looking at him. “I’ve-I’ve been stripped of everything I love, everything I had. I wasn’t good enough to stay in…that place. I can’t seem to cope being back here and I think life would be a lot easier for everyone if they-”

“Had to come visit you in prison?” he asks, blunt and light.

She stops short and then puts her head in her hands.

“I thought I killed someone. I was already freaking out over Spike being able to hit me. I’m not thinking very rationally,” Buffy says sadly.

“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ve gone on spirals. Once tried to take on an entire motorcycle gang, remember? I thought I might have killed someone myself for a while there. But I had someone to talk to about it. To help me figure out what really happened.”

“It’s not quite the same thing,” she says.

“Not a perfect match, I’ll grant you,” he says, “but near enough that I can see the wheels in your head spinning like it’s playing _Wheel of Fortune_.”

“If it is, I’ve probably gone bankrupt,” she mumbles.

“Not you,” he says.

“Thanks to you,” she says.

He smiles.

“Buffy, you’re not alone. It might feel like that way, but you’re not.”

“When did you get all wise?” she asks, stretching, feeling new life come into her tired limbs.

“Oh, please let me tell Veronica you said that,” he says.

“Tell away,” she says, flinging her hand out recklessly.

“I think you and I have opposite problems anyway,” he says, leaning forward. “I’ve been alone for most of my life and when someone came along that loved me, I clung so tight and I keep on suffocating her, or so she tells me. But you, you’ve got people clamoring to love you, yet you hold everyone at arm’s length.”

“I could hurt them. I do hurt them,” Buffy replies quietly.

“Loving someone is giving them permission to hurt you. It’s gonna happen whether you’re a completely normal college freshman or a vampire Slayer who’s a very pretty zombie,” Logan assures her.

“You think I’m pretty?” she asks, going for valley girl.

“Like a picture,” he says. “Not the point.”

“I don’t know how not to do what I’m doing,” she says, leaning back against her headboard. “I’m stuck, just stuck. I’m just going to keep on withdrawing and using and hurting them.”

“Have you heard of a little thing called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?” he asks.

“I guess you could say I’ve been in a war,” she says slowly.

“Uh, yeah,” Logan says. “You’re experiencing one of the most extreme cases I’ve ever seen in my one month of Intro to Psychology.” She laughs at that. “It can take years to get over it, and that’s with counseling and support from your friends. That’s partly why I gave you the money. I want to take away some of the stress. But I can’t do anything about the inner struggle to adjust to a new reality. It’s just gonna take time. Your destiny certainly doesn’t help, but the people who love you can.”

“Giles is gone,” she says despairingly. “Dawn’s too young to bear any burdens for me, Willow’s on a magical AA program, Xander and Anya are wrapped up in each other, Tara’s in post-breakup land, you and Veronica have your own lives and…and…”

“And Spike would lay down his life for you,” Logan says.

“But he’s never going to understand the importance of some really essential things,” she argues, “and I don’t want to hurt him because I can’t give him what he wants. Not right now.”

“Take what he’s offering and just watch it be given right back,” Logan urges. “And Veronica and I are here for you. Just spending time with Dawn will help her and you. Let us worry about Willow and Tara for a while. Forget about Giles.”

Buffy laughs. 

“Why are you so anxious for me and Spike to be together?” she asks after a moment.

“Because your love is epic,” he says simply. “You might even have me and Veronica beat. And, someday, I wanna hear the songs that they’ll write about you two.”

She doesn’t know why, but that comforts her.

She closes her eyes and tries to process and he doesn’t say anymore, perhaps sensing her need to think.

She’s not a murderer, she’s not wrong, she’s not a loveless monster, she’s a soldier in trauma. She likes that term. Soldiers can get help. Soldiers can reacclimatize to their lives. She can do this. She’s the Slayer, she’s Buffy, and she can…she will do this.


	12. Veronica and the Hallucinogenics

Veronica is feeling useful. She likes that feeling. Since she’s been in Sunnydale she hasn’t been able to do practically any of the things that make her so feared in the town of Neptune. But it appears that right now, Buffy’s biggest supernatural problem is actually three nerds in a basement somewhere and that Veronica can handle. She’s been tracking new rentals in Sunnydale to see where they could be hiding since she and Willow had discovered their last place of residence. 

Tonight she and Buffy are going through some of the neighborhoods she’s got on her list to see if they might be the right ones.

They don’t talk much. Buffy’s been really quiet ever since the Katrina incident. Veronica figures she’s probably got a lot on her mind. Logan spoke with her regarding his conversation with Buffy and Veronica really hopes that it will help in the long run for Buffy to just take it one day at a time and realize that she’s simply in normal trauma mode. All of them need to take it one day at a time.

The only bad thing is that Buffy’s feeling really guilty about beating on Spike. He’s still got a black eye and Veronica knows from experience that it must have been some beating for him to be retaining the injuries this long. She’s guessing that until the physical signs of her folly go away that Buffy won’t be able to look at him or be around him.

It doesn’t stop him from trying though. Even now he’s striding along behind them, determined to watch her back. Veronica supposes it’s sweet, but it also might be ill advised. Still, she’s pretty much stuck in the middle as it’s hard to have a heart to heart talk with either of them at any time, and impossible with both in hearing range. She’s also not their relationship counselor and she has enough trouble in that area to want to avoid giving out advice.

So she walks along with Buffy until the Slayer stops short and breathes in deep and long and turns around.

“Spike,” she says softly, but determinedly. 

“You rang?” he says, popping up from behind a car.

“Can you please go home and check on Dawn?” Buffy asks him, not looking at his eyes. “I don’t want her alone with Willow.”

“Not sure she’s the Summers that needs me right now, love,” he says nonchalantly.

“Don’t you get it, Spike?” Buffy says, finally looking up. “I hurt you. Badly. I’m dealing with a lot of stuff and the only way that I can do that is by letting you take care of something else that I should be caring about. Your face is my doing. Please just give me some space…William.”

Spike’s head shoots up when he hears his human name and Veronica raises an eyebrow.

Spike stands there looking defeated and defiant all at the same time. He’s all-encompassing with emotions, Veronica knows, and it’s an incredibly private thing to be witnessing but she can’t really help it.

“Have Private Eye call me if you need it,” he finally says and then disappears into the night.

Veronica and Buffy walk in silence for a few minutes and then Buffy sighs very loudly.

Veronica glances over at her.

“Can I offer you a cliché line about pennies and thoughts?” she says.

Buffy smiles slightly.

“I think my thoughts would rather pay you to be listened to than the other way around.”

“I could start up a new therapist business,” Veronica suggests. “Get a little booth and set it up outside Restfield with a stool and a sign like Lucy has on _Charlie Brown_.”

“The vamps would line up for miles,” Buffy says with a straight face. “Us folk of the night have more issues than people might think.”

“No, really?” Veronica asks.

“Cross my heart,” Buffy says solemnly.

She’s smiling and Veronica counts it a personal victory. Logan would probably be proud of her.

There’s a harsh, growling sound and Buffy whirls around as a demon jumps up behind her. It’s balding and disgusting and Veronica’s more than happy to let the expert take care of it. 

“You didn’t just happen to eat three nerds, did you?” Buffy asks, whirling and ducking with her usual grace.

Veronica and Buffy both see it too late but the demon’s arm has a needle-like appendage on it and it sinks into Buffy’s arm before they can do anything to stop it. Buffy cries out and sinks to the ground and Veronica rushes over, avoiding the arms, using the more long range attack methods that Spike’s shown her.

The demon growls at her and she leaps backward to avoid getting stabbed herself.

Focusing on her, the demon doesn’t notice Buffy getting up, smashing its head into a nearby car. The demon hesitates and then seems to hear something somewhere else because it just gives up the fight and runs in the other direction.

“Are you okay?” Veronica asks.

Buffy hesitates.

“At Slayer peak,” Buffy says finally, flexing her arm. “I guess the immunity thing is holding for me.”

“You should probably ask Tara to look at it,” Veronica says.

“If it gets worse I will,” Buffy promises. “Do you want to keep looking?”

“I think you should go home,” Veronica says worriedly.

“Yes, Mother,” Buffy tells her and Veronica refrains from mentioning that Buffy always seems happiest right after she’s fought something.

That and the obvious.

Veronica’s been leaving her car at Buffy’s whenever they patrol together so when they get home and the Slayer’s safely inside Veronica drives back to her dorm. She’s pretty caught up on her homework, which is good because she’s so tired she can’t even begin to think about attempting any.

Tara’s already asleep and Veronica quickly undresses and follows her example.

When she wakes up the next morning she goes through the practice routines Spike’s making her learn. He’s a lot more adept at making somebody else do things than being diligent in them himself, she thinks, disgruntled from lack of sleep.

Logan has begun joining her since Tara’s classes are generally way too early for Veronica to even contemplate getting up and she supposes it’s some of the most quality time they spend together now. Plus, it’s an opportunity to get sweaty and for him to take his shirt off. She generally approves of such things.

“What’s the plan for today?” Logan asks as they prepare to hit the showers, unfortunately, not together.

“I got a shift in an hour and then I wanted to stop by Buffy’s and make sure she’s okay. She got stuck by this demon last night,” Veronica explains.

“Stuck?” Logan asks.

“It had something on its arm that looked like a needle. It was really strange,” Veronica says.

“Can I make a casual observation?” Logan asks.

He’s been a lot more confident with her since the Invisible Buffy incident and she finds his observations a lot easier to take.

“Observe as intimately as you like,” she tells him.

“In that case I’ll just pull out my x-ray glasses,” he says, slinging an arm around her waist and catching her before she can get away.

“My muscles and bones are so sexy,” she teases him.

“Every time,” he says, nuzzling her neck.

“Hey, weren’t you observing?” she says, enjoying the nuzzling.

“Was I?” he murmurs.

“Casually apparently,” she replies.

“The permission for intimately appears to have driven it out of my mind,” Logan says absently.

“How flighty is man’s brain,” she says, reaching up to curve her own arm around his neck. He doesn’t reply, apparently content with paying attention to the back of her neck. “Do you know how sweaty and gross I am right now?” she finally says.

“It’s fine when I make you that way,” he tells her matter-of-factly, spinning her around so she’s facing him.

“I see, man makes woman sweaty, man looks at work with pride,” Veronica says, rolling her eyes.

“Exactly,” he says, smirking.

“Well, look quickly cause I’m showering,” she tells him.

“Wait, I remember my observation,” he says.

“And?” she asks.

“And I observe that you’ve been a lot happier since you’ve been able to help your friends with your Nancy Drew alter ego.”

“Well, duh, Sherlock,” she says.

“Don’t go wounding my perceptive ego,” he says, bopping her on the nose. “I’m just trying to say that it seems like a good use of your talents and as long as I get to be your humble Watson that makes me happy.”

“I doubt Sherlock and Watson ever do what we’re doing,” she says, sliding her hand up his bare chest.

“They do on the Internet,” he says, cocking his head to meet her lips.

It’s a while before they get to those showers and Veronica’s almost late for her shift.

When she gets there, Anya barely looks up from all the wedding plans she has strewn about her. The wedding’s getting closer and closer and Anya’s beginning to show pre-wedding strain like never before.

Veronica makes a mental note not to make any mistakes today. She doesn’t want to stress Anya out anymore than necessary. She already got a hysterical tirade when Veronica mentioned it wasn’t customary to have one groomsman and five bridesmaids. But the more she’s thought about it Veronica’s realized that Anya only has this town and these people. All of her long life before that was spent as a demon and Veronica doesn’t know much about it but she does know that if she were in that position, she’d want to cling to the things she has as well.

So she does her best to placate Anya and defend her when Willow gets sarcastic and makes fun of Anya’s wedding plans.

She works her shift and then heads over to Buffy’s house. She finds Willow and Xander hovering over Buffy who appears catatonic.

“What happened?” she asks, dropping all her stuff inside the doorway.

“She’s just not responding,” Xander says frantically.

“Is it the demon from last night?” Veronica asks.

“What demon?” Willow demands.

“She got stuck with some spiny needle thing. She seemed fine but I told her to have Tara check it out.”

“Just cause I’m not using magic doesn’t mean I can’t help,” Willow says, sounding annoyed.

“I didn’t say that,” Veronica says. “A little beside the point at this time anyway. How long has she been like this?”

“About five minutes. She did this once before when Dawn got kidnapped,” Xander says.

“What happened then?” Veronica asks.

“I went inside her head,” Willow whispers. “Not an option this time and if you’re right about this demon, then probably not helpful.”

“Dawn’s at school, right?” Veronica says.

“Thankfully,” Willow tells her. 

“Did you call Spike?” Veronica asks.

“Spike has a phone?” Xander asks.

Veronica rolls her eyes and pulls her cell out of her pocket, grateful she makes him carry a cell at all times now.

“Spike, get over here. Something’s wrong with Buffy. I’ll explain when you get here.” She hangs up and turns to Willow. “I can try and ID the demon if you get me some books.”

Xander and Willow look at each other before finally acting and Willow leaves the room.

Before she gets back Buffy stirs suddenly and wakes up.

“Buffy,” Xander shouts, “Buffy, are you okay?”

“She was catatonic, not deaf,” Veronica tells him.

“What happened?” Buffy asks, looking around.

“You tell us,” Xander says. “You disappeared into the land of Buffy’s head. Worried us and everything.”

“It must be the demon,” Buffy says slowly, like she’s not sure she believes it.

“Willow’s getting some books,” Veronica tells her.

Willow comes back in and exclaims about them not calling her though how she didn’t hear Xander shouting Veronica doesn’t know.

Before they can do any more explaining Spike bursts into the room, smoking as per usual, and looks around frantically before seeing a functioning Buffy and dropping into nonchalant mode in practically two seconds.

He’s obviously sticking close to the house, Veronica has time to observe before people start talking at once and Veronica can barely hear herself think.

“Calm down,” she yells over everyone. When they all stop talking and look at her she continues. “Buffy, wanna tell us what happened? All of us want to help.”

Buffy stands up and faces them all as if determined not to show weakness. Spike is leaning against the doorjamb, studying his fingernails as if he doesn’t even care. Like that makes sense.

“I was, uh, checking houses on that list with Veronica, and looking for Warren and his pals and then, bam! Some kind of gross, waxy demon-thing poked me.”

“And when you say poke...” Xander coaches.

Buffy rolls her eyes.

“In the arm. It stung me or something, and then I was like- no, it-it wasn't like. I was in an institution. There were, um, doctors and nurses and-and other patients. They-they told me that I was sick. I guess crazy. And that, um, Sunnydale and-and all of this, it - none of it - was real.”

“Oh, come on, that's ridiculous!” Xander spouts. “What? You think this isn't real just because of all the vampires and demons and ex-vengeance demons and the sister that used to be a big ball of universe-destroying energy?” 

He pauses and frowns and Veronica just hopes he doesn’t hurt his brain.

“I know how this must sound, but...it felt so real. Mom was there,” Buffy says quietly.

“She was?” comes Dawn’s voice from the entryway.

They all jump.

“You’re home,” Willow says as if that’s not the most obvious thing said ever.

Buffy just nods in answer to Dawn’s question.

“Dad too. They were together like they used to be...before Sunnydale.”

There’s an awkward silence before Willow stands up and raises her hand.

“Okay! All in favor of research?” Xander is the only one to raise his hand but Willow doesn’t seem to notice. “Motion passed. All right, Xander, you hit the demon bars. Dig up any info on a new player in town.”

“Shouldn’t Spike be doing that?” Veronica interjects.

Willow looks at her in annoyance before smiling fakely.

“Sure, if Spike wants to do that. I’m sure there’s someone in this town he hasn’t pissed off yet.”

“Don’t count on it, Red,” Spike says from the doorway, glowering.

“Spike,” Veronica says warningly. “If you wanna find some information that will be good, won’t it? I will try and ID the demon with Willow. Xander, your fiancée was looking really swamped as I left the shop. Maybe you should see if she needs any help.”

“I know you’re new here and everything,” Willow says snidely, “but generally demon research comes before Anya’s personal life.”

“I wonder if it comes before Xander’s personal life since it’s his wedding, too,” Veronica says sweetly. “Besides, if we’re all going with our area of expertise here then it makes the most sense for Spike to work with the demons, me to ID it since I was there, you to help me since you’re knowledgeable about magic, and Xander to go help the person he’s pledged to support for the rest of his life.”

“I get the point,” Xander says, jumping up and heading for the door. “Call me the minute you know anything. Maybe we can come by later.”

“Bring donuts,” Willow calls after him sulkily.

“What can I do?” Dawn asks, looking to Veronica while Willow purses her lips and starts to fire up her laptop.

“Why don’t you bring your homework down here and keep us company while we look? I’ll run things by you when I get stuck,” Veronica says.

Dawn nods, seemingly happy to be included.

Veronica looks at Buffy, but the other woman just looks relieved to not be making any decisions. Spike, on the other hand, looks like a proud papa.

“Can I go now, boss?” he asks, smirking at her.

“Do you want Logan to go with you?” Veronica asks. “I’m sure he’d like to help.”

“I’ll ring him up,” Spike says, saluting her and heading out the door.

Veronica sends Buffy upstairs where she seems to disappear into that other reality again and then prepares to subject herself to an extremely sulky Willow.

Buffy’s voice stops her before Veronica leaves.

“I was there again. They told me I’m sick. That this world isn’t real.”

“You are not in an institution. You have never been in an institution,” Veronica tells her gently sitting on the bed.

“Yes, I have,” Buffy says in a small voice.

“What?” Veronica asks.

“Back when I saw my first vampires I got so scared. I told my parents and they completely freaked out. They thought there was something seriously wrong with me. So they sent me to a clinic.”

“You never said anything.” Veronica’s totally surprised. She can’t imagine what that must have been like.

“I was only there a couple of weeks. I stopped talking about it, and they let me go. Eventually my parents just...forgot,” Buffy says slowly.

“That's horrible,” Veronica says softly.

Buffy starts to cry and Veronica doesn’t know what to do. It’s like seeing her dad cry. It’s just not right.

“What if I'm still there? What if I never left that clinic?”

Veronica holds onto her and shushes her and before she knows it, Buffy’s gone again.

Veronica goes downstairs and makes a quick phone call before sitting down at the table and listening to Dawn talk about school and looking through endless books that Willow hands her in a tense silence.

They do find the demon even if there's no possible way Veronica can pronounce the name and she sighs in relief.

“No magic required?” she asks Willow.

“Nope, just mix-y things,” Willow tells her, a little bit less grumpy now that she can be an integral part of the solution.

“I’m gonna call Logan and Spike,” Veronica says.

Willow frowns again.

Veronica calls her boyfriend who is indeed with Spike, who grumbles a lot in the background once Veronica somehow manages to communicate the name of the demon, and they go hunting for it so Willow can make the mixture.

Veronica looks up and sees Dawn descending the stairs looking really upset, but Dawn won't tell her what's wrong.

Veronica doesn't think that's a good sign.

Veronica spends a little time being worried about Logan and Spike, but she checks on Buffy instead of letting herself continue to do so, and lets Willow work on the antidote without interfering. She helps Dawn with some of her homework and then works on some of her own. She calls Xander and informs him as to what’s going on. In short, she just tries to stay busy.

It’s hard, the waiting periods, the in between times, the bit when you’re not physically doing something to remedy something. But stakeouts have taught her to be nothing but patient, so she waits.

Logan and Spike bring the demon back and tie it up in the basement and Willow starts to work in earnest.

Veronica tells Spike what’s happening so far and together they take the antidote up to Buffy when it’s ready. 

Once Veronica tells Buffy what’s going on she leaves, letting Spike talk to her. She can hear bits of their conversation as she waits outside the door.

Buffy says something about the other world being easier.

Spike’s blunt reply is easier to hear.

“Let yourself live, already. And stop with the bloody hero trip for a second. We'd all be the better for it.”

He storms out of the room and Veronica follows him without checking on Buffy. One thing at a time, she tells herself.

It’s not the smartest thing she’s ever done, but it’s been a stressful day.

When she gets back downstairs she finds Spike and Dawn talking in the kitchen while Logan is awkwardly trying to talk to Willow.

“I’m gonna get out of here,” Spike says, coming over. “Need to clear my head. Let the Slayer breathe through her paces. Let me know how it goes, yeah?”

“Spike…” Veronica says, wanting to berate him for what he said, but not really knowing how to “…okay. Stick close. She might need you.”

“She needs a bloody head shrink,” he growls and heads out the door.

Veronica stares after him thinking that Buffy must have really said something horrible because in her experience Spike doesn’t leave. He just doesn’t.

“I’m going upstairs,” Dawn says and heads up.

Willow resolutely ignores Veronica so she leads Logan outside to sit on the porch in peace.

“Heavy day?” he asks.

“The heaviest,” she says, leaning her head on his shoulder.

There’s a scuffling sound behind them and they look at each other before running back into the house. There’s a whistling sound through the air and a frying pan hits Logan on the back of the head and he goes down without a sound. Veronica’s heart hits her throat, but she ducks and avoids the same fate.

It’s Buffy.

“What are you doing?” Veronica asks, circling the island warily.

“Finding the real world,” Buffy says evenly.

She jumps over the island and shoves Veronica into the fridge. Veronica kicks her and ducks another punch. She’s never fully appreciated just how lethal Buffy is until this minute. Not even when she was her. They’ve never really sparred before and while Veronica trains with Spike all the time, he’s impeded by his chip from really working her. At least until recently it seems, for some reason. Buffy’s obviously having no such compunction and Veronica finds herself fighting for her life.

She grabs Buffy’s wrist and tries to pin her, but the Slayer head butts her from behind and Veronica sees stars. It’s all it takes for duct tape to pin her arms behind her back and Buffy slings her over one shoulder and grabs Logan with the other arm and carries them down to the basement where Willow is already trussed up and eying the demon tied up across from her with trepidation.

Veronica shakes her head and tries to roll off of Buffy’s back but the Slayer grips her tighter and tapes her to a column.

She disappears back upstairs without a word. She looks to see if she can see Logan, but he’s been dumped across from her and he’s not moving. Willow’s mouth is duct taped shut and she’s lying at an unnatural angle.

Then Veronica and Willow look at each other with frightened eyes because Dawn is backing down the stairs, trying to plead with a resolute Slayer.

“Buffy, look at me,” Dawn says. “I'm right here. You're my sister. I need you and love you. Somewhere inside you must know that's real.” 

“Sure it is,” Buffy says contemptuously. “Cause what's more real? A sick girl in an institution...”

“Don't. Please, listen to me,” Dawn begs.

“…or some kind of supergirl chosen to...fight demons and save the world. That's ridiculous.”

Buffy kicks Dawn down the rest of the stairs and the girl lands in a huddled heap. Veronica struggles to break free but she’s not super strong.

“Dawn, it’ll be okay,” she says. “We’ll do something.”

“Like what?” the girl shouts as her sister handcuffs her to the stair railing.

Veronica doesn’t want to know where Buffy got the handcuffs.

Buffy crosses over to the tied up demon and slowly unties it, then scurries under the stairs with her hands clasped to her head, groaning.

“Buffy, please,” Veronica shouts, “Buffy, you have to stop this.”

“You’re not real,” Buffy whimpers. “I have to do this.”

She goes quiet and Veronica guesses she’s in that other world.

There’s a soft step on the stairs as the demon obviously tries to decide which person to go after first.  
“Eximete!” comes Tara’s welcome voice from the stairs and Veronica’s never been so glad she asked someone for help before in her life.  
Their bonds dissolve in a flash of magic and Veronica rushes to help Dawn.   
“Vis zenobia! S-solvere!” Tara says again and the demon flies across the room, hitting the wall hard.  
Buffy’s hand sneaks up through the stairs and pulls on Tara’s leg, making her fall.  
“Tara!” Willow cries and goes to help her.

Veronica stands up and faces the demon for the second time in two days and she doesn’t much like her chances this time either. 

She ducks and weaves and tries to stay alive, but the demon throws her against the wall and she cries out in pain. She struggles to get back up but then Buffy is suddenly there, shouldering her way in front of the demon’s path to Veronica.

Buffy fights silently without any of her usual puns or grunts - she’s determined, like she’s fighting more than just the physical demon in front of her. Veronica stands back, grabbing a wrench left on the shelf above the washing machine just in case she needs to fight again. Either Buffy or the demon.

It’s a tense few moments and then there’s a crack and the demon’s neck is broken.

Everyone just breathes and looks, waiting.

Buffy straightens up and turns around.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought that world was real.”

Veronica’s first concern is making sure Logan’s okay. He’s still breathing but she calls an ambulance anyway and lets Tara and Willow make awkward conversation.

It’s a bit hard after that. Dawn’s upset and Buffy seems to want to avoid contact with anyone while Willow makes another antidote quickly and they all watch Buffy drink it this time.

It’s all a bit anti-climactic and yet, very obviously, a set-back for both Buffy’s road to recovery and her relationship with Dawn.

Spike comes back as soon as Veronica calls him and Buffy stops trying to get through to Dawn long enough to thank Veronica for everything she did.

“It’s what friends do,” Veronica says after a moment. “Though I think that whole ‘sticking a knife in your friend’s front’ proverb isn’t meant to be literal.”

“I’ll remember for next time,” Buffy says, looking sad. “But I mean it. You see more clearly and you get things done. Don’t let them bully you.”

“I obviously didn’t,” Veronica says.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy says, putting a hesitant hand on an unconscious Logan’s shoulder.

“He’ll be okay,” Veronica says, as much to herself as to Buffy.

Tara’s gone up to be with Dawn and Willow’s calling Xander. 

The last thing Veronica hears before she climbs in the back of the ambulance is Buffy apologizing to Spike and them hugging each other while he apologizes right back.

She just hopes that can last.

At the hospital, the doctors assure her Logan will be fine, just a bad concussion, and he’ll need to stay overnight for observation.

She sits by his bedside and she digests the events of the day and she wants to cry but she doesn’t want him to wake up to her tears. So she opens her laptop and checks her email.

There’s an answer back from Giles. It’s short and to the point.

 _Coming to wedding. We’ll talk then. I have a plan._

She’s not sure if that’s comforting or not, but at least she’s gotten confirmation that the technology-resistant man is receiving her messages.

She spends a few more minutes trying not to cry and tries to do some reading.

“ ‘Ronica?” comes a drowsy voice from the bed.

She leans forward and clasps Logan’s hand.


	13. Spike and the Wedding Suit

Spike’s been talked into wearing a suit. He’s not quite sure how it happened, but he’s about to beat his head into the wall and give up all pretense at un-life because he knows he can’t stand against the combined force of Buffy and Veronica. Add Dawn to the mix and he might as well hand them direct control over his cerebral cortex.

“It looks bloody ridiculous,” he growls for the fiftieth time and, yes, he is counting.

No one appears to be listening.

“Spike, you look hot!” Veronica finally spouts at him. “It’s a wonder Buffy can keep her hands off of you.”

He perks up a little bit at that, but he’s still sullen and grouchy, and he hates that just as much as he hates the suit.

In fact, all around, unlife just isn’t working for him right now. Buffy’s apologies are wearing a bit thin and he’s beginning to wonder if she can stand another supernatural event making her do something she’s already fearing she’ll do, upsetting her delicate balance in life. They’ve made up now for about the fiftieth time, and, yes, he’s still counting, but this time he’s more cautious than she is. His heart is just…feeling raw. He feels raw, like an exposed nerve, and he’s worried, worried about what may be happening to him and his life and the cautious boundaries enforced/imposed on him. He just doesn’t want his possible problems to be the final nail in the coffin for their relationship and even Buffy would be groaning at how he thinks of that.

Still, he’s in the suit for her and that should be enough love for anyone.

Everything around him is chaos. Xander’s family consists of a bunch of dysfunctional drunks and Anya’s demons are either very dangerous beings - some of whom have grudges against him - or constantly trying to change things to a traditional demonic ceremony. 

Xander appears to be slowly sinking under the pressure and Spike wonders just how much the whelp realizes about what he’s putting himself through. Anya’s obliviously happy, knee-deep in the preparations, and he just hopes it will last for her.

In the meantime, he’s stuck in this sodding suit and there’s a demon with horns chatting up his Bit across the room and he’s going to have to go over there and-

“Dawn can take care of herself,” Tara whispers in his ear and he turns with relief.

Finally someone sensible.

“Highly doubt it,” he snorts and then stops when he sees her. “Uh, you look-”

“Hideous,” she supplies somewhat cheerfully. “I think Anya’s taken the tradition of ugly bridesmaid dresses a little bit too much to heart.”

“You got that right,” he says, literally unable to tear his eyes away.

“On the plus side, it appears that Buffy and Willow have re-bonded over the shared misery of wearing it,” Tara tells him.

“Any other re-bonding going on?” Spike asks her knowingly.

“I don’t think so. There’s more broken here than a few months of-of not using magic. The person I- she’s not the same.” Tara ducks her head, pain in her words.

“You’ve changed a bit, too, pet,” he remarks. “For the better. Got some spine and spunk to you now.”

“Thanks,” she says wryly. “But I’d better get back. Anya wants help rehearsing her vows.”

He’s stuck ushering. Ushering like a bleeding, domesticated monkey. That and keeping all of Xander’s family away from the bar.

“Boy better appreciate this,” he says in a huff, ducking under Cousin Carol’s third advance on him.

He comes across Veronica and she’s with Logan and a newly-arrived Giles. She’s wearing the horrible dress, too. Logan seems to be trying not to snigger. Veronica seems to not be trying not to slap him.

“Watcher,” Spike says, nodding.

“Spike,” Giles says, nodding back.

“Family reunion a no then?” Logan asks, seemingly sniggering about something else now.

Giles flusters slightly and pulls his glasses off and Spike rolls his eyes.

“Oh, come on, Dad, no need to get all embarrassed.”

“Spike…stop it,” Giles warns.

“I’ve always wanted a nancy librarian for a daddy,” Spike continues, stopping only when Veronica steps on his foot.

“Giles, you said you had a plan about Willow,” Veronica inserts.

“Yes, perhaps this is not the best location. I…well, I have the start of one and a theory,” Giles replies.

“Good a place as any,” Spike says. “Not due to start yet and I, for one, am curious as to what your little plan is.”

“I plan on asking Willow to accompany me back to England,” Giles says, putting his glasses back on. “There’s a coven there where I’ve arranged for her to have a place to study.”

“She’ll never go,” Spike says immediately. “Admit she needs help and head over the pond with the man who abandoned her when she needed him? Not bloody likely.”

“Spike, I left for good reasons. None of which I feel the need to justify to you,” Giles says sternly.

“That’s not the point anymore,” Veronica says. “I don’t think Willow will yield.”

“Unless she does something unforgiveable I have no way of forcing her,” Giles says, sighing. “I don’t wish to estrange myself any further but I have to admit I am very concerned for her.”

“Leaving town probably wasn’t the best option then,” Spike says, pushing his point.

“Spike, what I do is none of your business,” Giles snaps.

“When it affects the Slayer it bloody well is,” he snaps back. “I don’t suppose you care how much she’s been dragging through the mud since you’re not here to see it.”

“What Spike is trying to say,” Veronica says diplomatically, “is that Buffy’s really hurting right now. This whole thing with Willow has been an unneeded stress on her already maxed-out shoulders.”

“She needs support,” Logan says. “Somebody to show her how to live her life, not by leaving and not by living it for her, but by helping her.”

“I didn’t get it either,” Veronica says, squeezing Logan’s hand and he smiles at her. “But I got a little wakeup call. I think you’re needed here.”

“I’m here for the wedding,” Giles says stiffly, not looking comfortable with the three-pronged attack being launched against him. “I will help with Willow in any way that I can. But I don’t wish to discuss my reasons for leaving. I will speak to Buffy about that myself.”

“Good luck,” Logan mumbles and Spike has to agree.

The Slayer’s a yo-yo at the moment. Up and down and all around. She pulls herself back up and then something like Katrina or that hallucination demon knocks her back down. He knows she’s trying to be there for him, for Dawn, but he’s holding back. Not too far though. More space is not the answer, he knows. He’s not going to leave, hence, him here in a stupid suit.

After helping Dawn with a very squirmy present and keeping some demon named Krelvin and Xander’s Uncle Rory from fighting, a frantic Buffy and Willow pull him into the hallway.

“Xander’s gone!” Willow hisses quietly.

“What?” Spike asks.

“He’s gone. We were having a moment with the whole realization of him growing up and it being sweet and then I left and when I went back, he was gone!” Buffy says, sounding frantic.

“We gotta find him or Anya will kill him,” Spike says, only somewhat reluctantly.

“Get Veronica and Logan on it,” Buffy says, seemingly pulling herself together enough to take charge. “Tara’s on Anya Distraction Duty and I’m gonna try and keep everybody out here from…”

“Killing each other?” Spike suggests.

“Yeah, that,” Buffy says reluctantly.

Buffy and Spike split off, leaving Willow standing there looking worried.

Spike rounds up Veronica and Logan and has them start searching the lodge and the surrounding area.

Buffy’s doing her best to keep the guests entertained and Spike will forever cherish the mental picture of her juggling, especially in that dress.

It’s all for naught when a distraught Anya comes storming into the room, resplendent in rage and white.

“Where’s Xander?’ she demands.

“We’re looking,” an out-of-breath Tara says from behind her.

“Not good enough. Who saw him last?” Anya asks.

Veronica steps up and puts a hand on Anya’s arm.

“Calm down, we’ll find him. I did see him speaking with an older man before Spike told me he was gone. I’ve been trying to find either of them.”

Spike looks around and spies an old man he doesn’t know (and he’d been introduced to every single horrible person on both sides at the rehearsal dinner the night before) slipping towards the door.

“I’d take a gander over there,” he says to Anya, pointing.

Her face hardens and she marches toward the man.

“You,” she says. “You were talking to Xander right before he left. What did he say to you? What did you say to him?”

“Really doesn't matter now, does it? It's done,” the man says, smiling nastily.

“What's done? Did you- if you said something to make him leave...” Anya trails off.

“You'll what? Haven't changed a bit. Still as vindictive as ever,” the man says.

“Do I know you?” Anya asks, deflating slightly.

“You don't recognize me, Anya? I'm not the man I used to be, I know.”

Behind them, the simmering attitudes suddenly self-destruct completely and a brawl breaks out, human and demon pummeling each other.

Buffy’s still on the stage and she speaks into the mike.  
“Guys! Will you break it up?”

Nobody listens to her, seemingly content to kill each other while rolling around on the ground and covering each other with frosting.

Anya, who would ordinarily be freaking out about this, is intent upon the demon. 

“Xander. Where is he? You tell me, old man! You tell me why he left!” Anya shouts.

“He left because of you,” the man replies.

“I didn't do anything,” Anya protests.

“Oh, really? What about this?” 

He changes. His body morphs becoming much more hideous and large and Anya suddenly seems very small in front of him in her wedding dress. Small but determined.

“Tell me what you did with Xander. What are you?” she asks.

“You did this. You brought this on. I've waited a long time for this, Anyanka.”

“Who are you?” she repeats.

The demon starts monologuing about Chicago in 1914 and Spike looks around, trying to see what he can do about any of this. Xander’s still nowhere in sight. He looks back when the demon hits Anya in the face. He springs forward.

“Every day I remembered...and every day I thought how I would somehow get here, and ruin your life like you ruined mine. It didn't take much either. I scared off your fiancée with a couple of phony visions.”

“Visions of what?” Anya asks, Spike now slightly in front of her.

“Your future. Or his nightmare vision of your future,” the demon replies.

Anya’s bravado breaks and she starts to cry and Spike wonders how much this really surprises her.

“That's it? That's all you did?” she asks.

“Yeah, it was easy. Look at that, you're crying. Oh, I like that.” 

Anya wipes at her eyes with her hands and whispers. 

“Stop it.”

“Oh, cry, Anyanka, cry. I love to see you cry. And now, I'd love to see you scream.”

Spike’s on him before the demon gets a chance to touch her but he’s a lot stronger than Spike anticipates and they reel back together, smashing into the wall.

Pandemonium is only one word for what’s occurring, screaming, shouting, bones cracking. Spike’s caught up in his own fight but he sees Buffy jumping off the stage and racing toward him only to get swallowed up in the melee of drunken and pissed off wedding guests.

He sees other people fleetingly, Veronica and Giles separating fights and Logan pulling Tara out of harm’s way of some falling debris. That demon he was so worried about earlier has shielded Dawn behind the gift table and Spike spares a second to reconsider killing him.

Then the demon throws him off and Spike smashes into said gift table. He gets up and heads back, but the demon has already clawed Anya’s arm and is preparing for the killing blow.

“You don’t touch her!” Xander’s voice says, ringing out through all the noise.

He whacks the demon hard and then shoves a pillar on top of it. A large chunk breaks off and Xander picks it up, bringing it down with force on the demon's neck.

Buffy gets there at the same time Spike does and they look down at the demon, neck broken.

“Huh,” Spike says, turning to Xander. “Nice blow.”

Xander’s not looking at him; he’s busy helping Anya up.

She’s talking already, talking about how what he saw wasn’t true and now with the demon gone they’re finally ready to get married.

Xander looks down and says slowly.

“I'm not. I'm not ready. I can't, Ahn, I'm sorry.

“But it wa- it wasn't real. What he showed you, it wasn't real,” Anya says, sounding bewildered.

“I know it wasn't real. But it could be,” Xander replies.

Spike’s hearing all this with half his normal hearing because the rest of them are still trying to break up the fighting and it’s rather loud in here.

He’s not sure he should even be hearing it, but he can’t make himself leave and he’s a bit startled when Buffy slips her hand into his as she listens, too. 

“What was it? Was it about me? Cause he wanted you to hate me, Xander,” Anya says.

“It wasn't you,” Xander replies. “It wasn't you I was hating. I had these thoughts, and...fears before this. Maybe we just went too fast.”

“Look, everybody has thoughts. It's natural; it doesn't mean that-that getting married is wrong,” Anya says.

“I know, I know,” he says.

Anya starts to cry in earnest, desperately holding onto his hands.

“Look, you're just shaken up, okay? You just calm down and we'll start over, okay?” she says. 

“We can't start over. If this is a mistake, it's forever, and...I don't want to hurt you. Not that way,” Xander says sadly, but with finality.

Anya’s crying and their hands drop and Xander’s mumbling apologies but Spike’s heard enough and he starts forward when Xander goes to leave.

“Don’t leave her alone,” he says sharply to Buffy. “Keep everything together, yeah?”

For once Buffy doesn’t argue with him. She puts her arm around Anya as the girl looks around dully at her ruined wedding. The guests are quieting now, starting to sense something other than their own brawl is going wrong.

Spike doesn’t look back as he goes after Xander into the rain and he blesses the lack of sun that lets him do this. He doesn’t have to look to see Logan’s by his side.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Spike says, gripping Xander’s arm hard enough to hurt and he’s only a little surprised when the chip doesn’t fire.

At this particular moment he doesn’t care. That’s a problem for a future Spike.

“Not now, Spike,” Xander grits out.

“Don’t walk away, man,” Logan says, getting in front of him.

“This isn’t any of your business,” Xander says.

“You made it my business when I had to put on this suit,” Spike says. “And I mean for that sacrifice to mean something and it won’t unless the two of you get hitched.”

Xander doesn’t crack a smile, doesn’t look anything but completely devastated.

“This isn’t the way,” Logan tries again.

“You don’t get to leave her like this,” Spike says, angry and not caring. “You don’t wanna live together forever, I can’t make you, but you don’t get to just leave. You don’t get to make her clear up your mess.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Xander yells, rounding on Spike. “You’re not my conscience, you don’t even have one. I’m sick and tired of you acting like you know me, like you know us, like you have any say in our lives, like you’re better.”

“Why, cause I’m acting better and that makes you feel lower than low, doesn’t it?” Spike needles.

“I am better than you,” Xander says loudly. “I have to be.”

“We’re all just men here,” Logan says, putting a restraining hand on Spike’s shoulder. “I’m far from perfect, too. It’s not a shameful thing.”

“You don’t know,” Xander says. “You haven’t been here. Vampires are playmates to you but they’ve ripped my life apart in too many ways. I won’t do the same to her.”

“And how do you think she feels right now?” Logan asks bluntly. “Do you think she feels like she’s had a narrow escape? Like she should be grateful you’re saving her from a life with the person she loves the most? You didn’t even try talking to her, you just left. That’s the coward’s way out.”

“You don’t know me either,” Xander says. “I’ve done things you can’t imagine. And I won’t do those things. I won’t be my father; I won’t hurt her like that.”

“You wanna know what living with a bad dad is like?” Logan finally says heatedly, gritting his teeth like he’s forcing himself to say the words. “It’s him being so famous that you never see him unless he’s beating you. Unless he’s raping and murdering your girlfriend. It’s him going to jail. Your dad may beat you, treat your mom wrong, but at least she’s alive. At least she didn’t jump off a bridge and leave you.”

Xander stares at him and Spike does a little, too. He’s known the bare facts, but this is raw emotion and Spike immediately sees exactly why Logan clings so tightly to Veronica and why he hides behind a jackass exterior.

“I-I…” Xander says stupidly.

“You don’t leave them to save them,” Logan says firmly, “you make sure that you be the kind of man he never was. You let them help make you better and you do the same for them.”

“I’m not that strong,” Xander says finally, staring into the distance.

“No one is. That’s why you do it together,” Logan says, softer now.

Spike knows without a shadow of a doubt that Logan is the right person for Veronica and vice versa and that Logan is the one who will save the day today. He can practically see the shift in Xander’s mind as he processes and comes to a decision.

“You’re right,” he says. “I’m ready now.”

“I’m not saying you have to get married today,” Logan says, quieter now. “But just talk to her first. Make it a decision you make together.”

“No,” Xander says, looking steadier than Spike’s seen him look in months. “No, as long as she still wants it. This is it.”

So they get married.

The cake’s ruined and the minister has a black eye and the bridesmaids all look like they’ve been through a war, though probably secretly delighted that their dresses are all ruined, and that squirmy present somehow got loose and ran off, but they have the wedding.

Anya’s glowing on the dance floor and Spike can’t help but feel amazing. He’s got things to worry about though. The worries about his chip are manifesting at an alarming rate and he makes a mental note to speak to Veronica about it.

The chip has been malfunctioning too often for him to ignore anymore and on people who don’t have the coming-back-from-the-dead excuse.

Giles stiffly approaches him.

“In light of recent events, I have decided to stay, though I will still ask Willow to come back to England with me once things are more stable here.”

“That hurt to say, Dad?” Spike teases.

“Twat,” Giles says and goes to speak with Willow on the other side of the room.

Spike smiles.

“Wanna dance?” Buffy asks, appearing at his elbow.

“That’s all we’ve ever done,” he tells her and lets her lead him to the floor.

“You did real good,” she tells him.

“Scottie did all the work,” Spike tells her.

“He does that,” Logan says from behind them where he and Veronica are dancing.

Spike laughs and shakes his head and they move their separate ways but not before he hears Veronica speak softly.

“I’m proud of you.”

“That’s all I needed,” Logan says back and then they’re lost in the shuffle of music and people.

Spike’s okay now because, despite the suit and the slow dancing, Buffy’s in his arms.

He’s still a vampire though, with vampire hearing.

“I won’t leave,” Xander says a little to the left. “I’m sorry I didn’t share my fears.”

“This is what we sang about, isn’t it?” Anya says.

“I think so,” Xander replies.

“Stupid singing demon,” Anya grumbles, burrowing further into Xander, which Spike doesn’t think is publicly possible.

“We’re okay now, right?” Xander asks.

“We’re married,” Anya says, looking up with clear love on her face. “And you’re not going to hide things. We’re perfect.”

Spike hopes so.

“Stop listening to other people’s conversations!” Buffy smacks him.

“Sorry, love,” he says. “Not even trying.”

“Pay more attention to me,” she says, pouting her lips toward him. “I may be hideous in this dress, but I am still your girlfriend.”

Maybe the events of the day have reminded her of what she could lose. He doesn’t know exactly, but he’s not going to miss an opportunity to love her. To show her he can be there for her. 

“I never forget that,” he tells her.


	14. Logan and the Bank Job

Logan’s at the Summers’ residence for a reason. It’s not what he calls a fun reason, but a necessary one. He’s been waiting, hoping he wouldn’t have to do this, because it just feels weird and unlike him and he doesn’t want to feel responsible for it. Alas, here he is.

“Hey, Dawn,” he says, upon entering and finding her alone in the dining room.

She looks up guiltily and he knows she can guess his reason for being there. The weight of confession’s obviously been on her heavily and she’s been avoiding him.

“Hi, you want Buffy? I can get you Buffy!” Dawn says, moving toward the stairs.

“Sadly, I only want to speak with her if you don’t,” he says, wondering slightly when his moral compass grew to such an extent that it’s starting to take over his whole life.

“I just-" she says and stops. She looks down at her homework. “I’m doing my work,” she says softly. “I haven’t stolen anything since we talked. I’m doing what you said.”

“You’re doing great,” he tells her. “If it wouldn’t be a weird thing to say I’d tell you I was proud of you. But it’s not enough. You’re just lucky it’s me and not Veronica sniffing out your secrets.”

“I’m sure she’s sniffed out plenty of yours,” Dawn rejoins somewhat haughtily.

“More than you want to know,” Logan answers. “But it always seems to work out best when I tell her before she does.”

“Fine, I get the point.” Dawn sighs heavily then yells. “Buffy! Buffy!”

“You want me to go?” Logan asks.

“No, somebody should at least attempt to keep her from killing me,” Dawn says heavily.

Logan finds that humor somewhat inappropriate considering Buffy had actually tried to do that recently.

“Dawnie, I was on the phone,” Buffy says, as she walks into the room. “Oh, hi, Logan.”

He waves, waggling his fingers at her.

“I have something to tell you,” Dawn says and confesses the whole thing.

Logan watches Buffy’s eyes grow heavy and her shoulders set. He wishes this could be easier on them, especially with Dawn shrinking down in her seat in a way that he can easily relate to.

“Don’t be too hard on her,” Logan says when Dawn’s finished and there’s a pregnant silence. “She’s been clean for a couple of months now.”

“I just…oh, Dawn. It’s just one more thing.” Buffy stops talking and attempts a smile. “I’m glad you told me. We’ll work out a punishment later. For now, do you still have the stuff?”

“In my room,” Dawn says, leading the way up the stairs.

There’s a muffled sound of arguing coming from the kitchen and Logan thinks he can make out Willow’s voice as he follows the girls upstairs.

“That whole ‘Sweets kidnapping you’ thing makes a lot more sense now,” Buffy says.

“And that jacket I gave you for your birthday,” Dawn says, “I hope you haven’t got demon blood on it or anything.”

“Dawn!” Buffy says.

The girls bicker a bit as they enter Dawn’s room, but Logan’s relieved because the bickering means something like normality for them and that’s been missing for way too long.

“Here,” Dawn says, crouching down behind her dresser and pulling on a panel behind it. “Ow! There’s something caught here.”

She pulls harder and then suddenly falls on the ground as there’s a huge crack and a vast cord pulls free of its plaster in the wall and a small dark object falls to the ground. Buffy reacts quickly, pushing Logan out of the way and catching it.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Looks like a…camera maybe?” Buffy says.

“You put a camera in here to spy on me!” Dawn shrieks from the floor.

“Like I would even know how,” Buffy tells her. “No, this is someone else. Someone like a couple of nerds I know of.” She and Logan exchange looks. “We should get Willow to help,” Buffy says, heading out the door. “I’m not finished with you yet,” she calls back to Dawn. “You’re grounded until further notice.”

“Perfect, now I can be ignored in solitude,” Dawn grumbles.

“It’s a start,” Logan tells her, smiling.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, but she goes back downstairs and Logan joins Buffy who’s about to enter the kitchen when an upset Willow brushes past them and up the stairs and Giles stands behind, looking resigned.

A slamming door sounds over their heads.

“What’s that about?” Buffy asks Giles.

“Whether or not she will consent to training,” Giles says, walking past them himself and out the door without a goodbye.

Buffy’s shoulders slump and Logan feels awkward. He knows Buffy and Giles haven’t really made up since he left the time before. But he has no idea what he can possibly do about it.

There’s a smashing sound from upstairs.

“You wanna ask her or should I?” Logan asks.

In the end they both knock on her door and after an initial moment when she yells at them about leaving her alone, she opens the door and they explain and an almost perky look appears on her face and she heads downstairs to her laptop.

“I’m gonna call Mac up,” she says, chattering as she works. “She can work the magic on her end and she knows just as much as I do about this, maybe more since helping Veronica with stuff.”

Buffy and Logan don’t have too much of an idea what she says after that and Logan shares a wry smile with Buffy. 

Mac’s face pops up on the screen and Logan winks at her.

“Long time no see, Mac. How you holding up?” he says.

“Better with the ‘not missing you’ bit,” she says tartly and he chuckles and then Willow launches into a long explanation of something using words like signals, systems, networks, relays and other jargon he doesn’t understand.

Mac seems to, though, because there’s intense concentration on both ends now.

Buffy appears every few minutes, pacing impatiently, asking whether or not they’ve got anything.

“Should have something once I get tapped into the fiber-optic network,” Willow says. “We're gonna use the feedback relay to, uh, get their signal routed into our system.”

“Technology's pretty sophisticated, lots of booby traps and firewall stuff,” Mac agrees.

“But can you get us a location?” Buffy says.

“Well, hey, I'm still me,” Willow says. “Just one- whoa.”

“What?” Logan asks.

“There are other cameras,” Mac says when it’s apparent Willow doesn’t seem able to answer.

“I’m calling Veronica,” Logan says after Buffy’s three-minute tirade on How! Why! Where!

Veronica’s patrolling with Spike as it turns out, so Logan calls them both home early.

Willow appears less than thrilled at the idea, but Logan doesn’t know a better person for the job of figuring out Buffy’s questions than Veronica, and Spike’s always good for distracting Buffy.

When Veronica gets there she goes right into decoding the location feeds that Willow and Mac give to her. Willow and Mac keep on with hacking into the camera system and finding out where they all are.

They’re everywhere as it turns out. The Bronze, the Magic Box, the campus, everywhere.

“I’ve got where it comes out,” Veronica finally says in triumph. “Right where the demon got you, Buffy. Looks like we were on the right track there.”

“Then that’s where I’ll be,” Buffy says, grabbing her coat.

“Not alone,” Spike tells her.

Buffy huffs a little sigh that’s more fond exasperation than anything else.

“I’m coming, too,” Logan and Veronica say at the same time.

“Fine, we’ll all go. Just…follow my lead, okay?” Buffy just laughs.

“O, Captain, my Captain,” Logan tells her, giving her a mock salute.

He’s not really sure why he wants to go, unless it’s because he wants to keep Veronica out of trouble. If he can’t stop her, he’s gonna join her, or something like that.

It’s not far to get there and Buffy and Veronica quickly figure out where they were attacked before and Veronica uses the papers she printed out to find the right house. It looks dark and vacant, but Logan doesn’t suppose that really means anything. 

“You two stay out here,” Buffy says, pointing to Spike and Veronica.

“You want moi with you?” Logan raises his eyebrows.

“To keep an eye on you,” she says, pushing him ahead of her slightly.

He laughs and then shuts up as they enter the basement.

“Empty. Disappointing,” Buffy says from behind him. She walks toward the center of the room. “I’ve had more nerd-y trouble than I care to these past couple of months.”

There’s a buzzing from behind her and his eyes widen.

“Look out!” he yells, stepping forward as a huge saw looms up behind her out of the black.

Buffy glances back and then jumps off the ground, flipping backward. The saw misses her.

“Grab the stuff!” she yells, concentrating on stuffing papers into her pockets.

He grabs the discs and papers by the door and then ducks as a saw appears where his head was about two seconds before.

“There’s more,” he tells her, backing up the stairs.

There’s more buzzing and three saws going three different directions surround her and he honestly doesn’t know how she’s going to get out of there. His heart is in his throat and this is the part of this whole life he hates. It may not be Veronica standing there in danger, but it’s someone else he loves and he hates it.

Then she does one of those moves that remind him she’s not normal and launches herself into the air, twisting almost parallel to the floor and lands right in front of him.

“Let’s go!” she shouts, pushing him up the stairs. He stumbles up them. “Oh, they’re going to pay for that. I love this jacket,” she mumbles from behind him.

Spike’s already halfway down the stairs as Logan starts up.

“We’re fine,” Logan chokes out.

They all stand up in the night air, Logan and Buffy breathing hard, and it’s slightly weird. Logan’s just glad to be out of there. He’s no coward, but he’s starting to feel like the ‘flirting with danger’ routine that he liked to pull in high school just isn’t worth it anymore.

“Maybe you can work with this stuff we got,” Buffy says, pulling stuff out of her pocket and giving it to Veronica. “Get some intel or whatever on the whereabouts of our annoying friends.”

That’s the plan but it’s running past midnight and Logan doesn’t really run on vampire time. When they get back to the house, Dawn’s asleep and Willow’s disconnected from Mac, though feverishly still typing.

“You’ve got nothing to prove, Will,” Buffy says softly. “Get some sleep.”

Logan doesn’t stick around to see how Willow takes that. He just grabs Veronica and goes.

He has a class the next morning and he goes and honestly tries to pay attention, but his mind is full of the previous night’s events. Still, when Veronica calls and tells him to come over to Buffy’s, he does.

She’s in full on investigate mode when he gets there, giving Buffy the lowdown on all the information she’s pulled from the papers.

“These are the key,” she says, pointing to specific bits.

“To what?” Buffy looks just as puzzled as everyone else.

“Banks, armored car routes, corporate vaults,” Veronica explains. “This is big and it’s like they're looking to score some serious dinero. I don't think they're planning just one job.”

“Spree, anyone?” Logan asks.

“I-I can't cover all of these at once,” Buffy says, looking disappointed.

“You don't have to. I think there's one they may hit tonight. It's time sensitive,” says Veronica.

Spike bursts in the door and they all look up in surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Buffy asks.

“Your little boy-ish problem just hit puberty,” he says. “They were at a bar, Robot-Boy packing a lot more punch than normal. Something’s skewed up.”

“Are you okay?” Veronica asks.

“Yeah, even if they weren’t all mighty, you wouldn’t have been able to…” Buffy asks, her voice fading away. A look of guilt flits over Spike’s face. “Did you go after him on purpose?” she demands.

“What of it?” Spike says, cocking his head defiantly.

“You can’t hurt humans,” she yells. “And it’s my job you’re trying to do.”

“It’s what you would do, innit?” he yells right back.

“You’re not me,” Buffy says.

“But I can’t be me either, can I?” Spike says unhappily. “Can’t figure out what to do without your bleeding hand jerking me every which way. Cause I don’t have a soul. Pity the whelp’s on his honeymoon otherwise I’m sure he’d be happy to remind you.”

“Where is this coming from?” Buffy asks in confusion, anger still lacing through her words.

“From you, from the bloody universe,” he says angrily. “I won’t ever be- no, bollocks to that. It's the chip! Steel and wires and silicon. It wouldn't let me be a monster. And I can't be a man. Just your pet vampire and now when you- I'm nothing.”

He ends on a softer, despairing note and then turns around, stalking out the door and slamming it.

There’s no end of confusion in them all, except perhaps Veronica, who’s staring after him with what Logan calls her I’m Going to Uncover Your Secret and You’ll Wish You Were Never Born face.

“Buffy…” Willow says reluctantly, looking both glad and apologetic.

“I can’t focus on him right now,” Buffy says slowly. “I’m gonna take Warren and his minions down and take them down hard, no matter what Mighty Mouse tricks he’s got up his sleeves.”

She goes upstairs.

“She’s still not going alone,” Veronica says determinedly. “Spike’s the best back up she could have, but if he’s off sulking somewhere, then Logan and I will have to do.”

“You’re not the Slayer,” Willow says and Logan almost agrees with her.

“But I am her friend,” Veronica says, “and I’ve been training for this. So has Logan. And Buffy has to learn that she doesn’t have to do everything alone. She’s not alone.”

He can’t really argue with that. Not when he’s been arguing for it all along.

“I generally ask ‘how high’ when the blonde girl says ‘jump,’ ” he tells Willow and follows Veronica.

They quickly prepare to go and Buffy doesn’t argue with them when they tell her they’re going, too. It appears she’s learning how to let go herself, somewhat.

Willow leaves to work on campus and since Tara has a late class that day, Buffy calls Giles and asks him to stay with Dawn. When Dawn complains, Buffy tells her that it’s part of her punishment and Dawn subsides grouchily. In the meantime, they head out to find Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew. Logan’s curious to meet the nerds who’ve been causing so much trouble.

“Stay back unless I need you,” Buffy tells them seriously. “I appreciate the back-up, but this is my gig tonight.”

“The stage is yours,” Logan tells her, and he means it.

He’s never going to back down from a fight, but he does realize the wisdom of doing so when one can and the wisdom in letting those who are meant to do the fighting do it.

Plus, it’s pretty impressive when Buffy stands on top of the bank and jumps down on the bad guys.

“Is this your bank? Because if not there’s gonna be a fee for that,” she says.

Except something’s all wrong because Warren’s fighting large and strong and utterly wiping the floor with the Slayer. Logan wants to step in except he doesn’t know what to do.

“You know who I am? Huh, Slayer?” Warren asks, knocking her down.

“You're a murderer,” Buffy says, struggling to her feet.

“Well, that too, but more to the point…I'm the guy that beat you. And it's not the muscles, baby. It's the brains.”

He punctuates each point with a kick and Buffy gasps.

“I'll remember that when I knock 'em clean out of your-” she starts.

She doesn’t get to finish her jab because the smallest nerd jumps on her back and looks laughable hanging there.

Warren does laugh, telling him he didn’t think he had it in him. Logan thinks there’s something else going on, but then Buffy shakes him off and Warren knocks her down again. He looks to his left and sees that Veronica has collared the remaining nerd and is holding him firmly from straining to get to Warren.

Warren leans over Buffy and Logan starts forward, but sees her grab something from around his waist and smash it to the ground. There’s a bright, blue light and Warren staggers back.

“Warren!” cries out the nerd in Veronica’s possession.

“Shut up, Andrew,” the other one, Jonathan seemingly, says.

“Not tonight, baby,” Warren says angrily. 

He flings back his jacket revealing an honest-to-goodness jet pack on his back and fires it up, flinging himself into the air.

“Oh, that’s just not fair,” Buffy says, looking at the skies.

“Don’t leave me!” Andrew wails, shoving an elbow into Veronica’s stomach and trying to fire up his own jet pack.

“Uh, how come I didn’t get one of those?” Jonathan asks, but he remains where he is.

“He left me,” Andrew whimpers. “I can’t believe he left m- uh, us.”

Jonathan shakes his head and Logan has to agree with the sentiment.

Veronica shoves Andrew towards Logan and he sets him down beside Jonathan on the ground while she calls the cops.

Buffy squats down in front of the nerds, addressing Jonathan more than Andrew.

“You know where he’s going?” she asks.

“Obviously not,” Jonathan says bitterly. “Seeing as how he was planning on leaving me here.”

“Why are you with him in the first place?” Buffy asks incredulously. “What happened? Didn’t we talk about this after your spell?”

“Oh, we had a moment, and then you walked away,” Jonathan says, but swallows hard. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, I swear. He-he started doing things and it was gonna be fun, but then the girl- and he…”

Buffy sighs and puts her hand on his shoulder.

“Being in over your head isn’t fun, but that’s when you get help.”

“I-I, I’m sorry,” he stutters, not looking at her.

“So am I,” she says. “I have to let the cops handle you now. There’s not another option.”

“I- okay,” Jonathan says, sounding resigned.

Andrew’s lost in his own Warren-deprived world and doesn’t protest when the cops come either. They’re taken away in blue flashing lights and Buffy gives a wan smile watching them go.

“Two down,” she says.

It’s a start anyway and Logan goes home feeling pretty good about the whole situation. Tara’s just getting home as they do, and Veronica starts explaining the situation to her as they head inside their room. Logan finds his own room just down the hall and goes to bed.

The next day finds him with Veronica en route to the Magic Box. Logan’s going to train while Veronica works a shift. Giles is watching over the place with Anya on her honeymoon.

Logan heads into the back and finds Spike pounding the punching bag so hard that it explodes.

“Hazard a guess that you’re not doing so hot,” Logan remarks carefully.

Spike doesn’t turn.

“Private Eye here?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Logan says cautiously.

“Nab her, yeah? Need to talk to you two,” Spike says.

Logan goes and gets Veronica who only comes because it’s Spike.

“What’s going on?” Veronica asks.

“Chip’s fritzing,” he says simply. “Doesn’t always work. Mostly, but not always. Not just on Buffy.”

“So?” Logan asks.

“So now he’s worried about what Buffy will say. And whether or not he can handle the temptation,” Veronica says.

“She’s got it in two,” Spike says, not really looking at them.

“That’s what all that talk was about last night,” Logan says, realization coming.

“I’m-I’m trying,” Spike growls. “But she’s what guides me and she guides me cause I’m with her. If she doesn’t want to – and I won’t try to force it, not anymore – than what the bloody hell am I going to do?”

“Vigilante crimefighter?” Logan suggests weakly.

“Not helping, Scottie,” Spike says, sighing.

“Look, Buffy loves you,” Logan points out. “I don’t care if she doesn’t know it herself, she does. And no one doubts that you love her. This is just another setback. If you choose not to be evil, you won’t be.”

“Ain’t that cut and dry,” Spike says.

“You’re different than other vampires,” Veronica tells him, watching him closely. “You’ve always been. What, you want to end up like Angel? Always brooding, making everybody’s choices for them? Or do you want to live your life?” He opens his mouth but she cuts him off. “No remarks about not being alive.”

Spike laughs slightly, but his shoulders still sag.

“Come on then, you two, wanted you there when I told her.”

It’s obvious he thinks he’s going to his doom. Logan hopes not.

Still, he and Veronica accompany their vampire friend across town, using Logan’s tinted windows and a blanket. When they get there, Spike hurries ahead of them to avoid burning to death and that’s why they come upon a scene they probably shouldn’t.

Willow and Tara are standing in the kitchen, Willow reaching out for her.

“No, Willow,” Tara says, ducking away. “I-I’m sorry. I-I wish things were d-different. But-but they’re not. You made a choice and now we-we both have…to live with it.”

Willow’s crying and Tara’s just now noticing them and Logan begins backing away apologetically into the other room. Veronica and Spike follow his example and Buffy joins them, coming down the stairs.

“What’s up? Spike, where have you been?” Buffy starts to ask.

Logan looks from one room to the other and suddenly wishes he were any place but here. Spike screws up his face and starts to say something, but it’s all moot because the door bursts open and Warren rushes in.

Spike has to dive for cover as the sun bursts on him and Veronica jumps to grab a blanket for him.

Warren’s waving a gun and yelling madly.

“You think you can just do that to me? You think I'd let you get away with that? Think again.”

Shots ring out and time becomes very slow for Logan. The gun’s not steady in Warren’s hand and the first bullet flies past him down the hall and there’s a splattering, thumping sound and there’s a cry of ‘Tara’ that echoes dully in his ears. He doesn’t fully understand, especially as all his attention is on the gun and the next bullet that’s headed directly for Buffy.

He’s not a coward, but he’s not brave either. At least, he doesn’t think so. He fights and he has a high pain threshold and he will literally do anything in the world for Veronica, but he’s never thought he’ll do this.

He jumps forward, pushing Buffy as hard as he can. There’s a sharp pain in his chest and he falls to his knees, fuzzily wondering why, why when he’d saved her.

Except there’s something red on his chest and he can’t see and Veronica’s voice is yelling from a very long way away.

He hopes she’s okay. He hopes-


	15. Buffy and the Best Friend Freak Out

Buffy realizes she doesn’t know anything about guns. She’s a warrior, trained for battle, crafting death with her hands, but she knows nothing about guns. Her opponents have powers, strength, fangs, claws, but not guns. This whole scenario doesn’t make sense. She tries to think, wondering if there was a time, but all she can think of is Darla shooting at Angel and wasn’t that just laughable?

She scrambles up from the ground where Logan pushed her and stares at him on the ground. He’s bleeding, red blood, sticky and copper-y, pouring from his chest. Veronica’s there, applying pressure and probably doing all those things you’re supposed to do in a situation like this.

Spike’s eyes meet hers over their friends and something in his eyes makes her get up, makes her slam the door shut, keeping the sun from frying him alive. Veronica’s phone is lying on the ground and she picks it up, calling 911.

The operator answers and she’s hit with a flashback of the last time this happened, her on the phone, someone she loves not responding. She wants to fall back into the mists of the pain, but she’s not, she’s answering questions, and then there’s an anguished scream from the kitchen and she feels cold, like dark magic is sweeping over the house.

“Willow?” she whispers, looking up.

Willow’s on the ground, Tara in her arms, and there’s a black cloud shooting out of her mouth at the ceiling.

“Red?” Spike asks from beside her.

Willow stands up and her eyes are jet black. Buffy takes an involuntary step back.

“Will?” she asks. “Tara…”

“She’s dead,” Willow says flatly and walks toward them.

Buffy’s heart is plummeting and she can’t breathe properly.

“Dead?”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a nerd to find,” Willow says, pushing past them.

The door blows off its hinges and Spike dives for cover again while Willow disappears outside. Buffy simply stares, so unable to function it’s not funny.

“Slayer!” Spike hisses from her left and Buffy tears her eyes away from Willow’s retreating form and looks at him, eyes wide. “Slayer, focus!”

“When’s that ambulance coming?” Veronica snaps, not even looking up from where Logan’s still on the ground, bleeding-bleeding-bleeding.

Buffy can’t look at the kitchen, she can’t. She drifts into the dining room.

Spike snatches the phone from Buffy’s numb fingers.

“1630 Revello Drive, yeah,” he says. “Hang a sec, hear ‘em coming now.”

With vampire hearing, she thinks, cause she can’t hear anything.

“Buffy, Buffy, I need you,” Veronica says, somehow penetrating into the haze. “Give me the phone.”

Buffy looks down and falls to her knees by Logan’s side, catching the phone Spike tosses to her and hands it to Veronica.

“Press down hard,” Veronica tells her and Buffy puts her hands on Logan’s chest. 

In the background Veronica is spouting off information to the paramedics and Buffy’s just looking down at her blood covered hands and pressing, pressing hard.

Then she’s shoved out of the way as the paramedics take over and she sits on the stairs, trying not to inhale. So much blood. The smell of it is thick in her nostrils and she spares a thought for how Spike must be handling the smell. It's too nauseating to contemplate.

“Spike, will you stay here and deal with…with Tara?” she asks, knowing he’ll hear her.

“Yeah,” he says and his voice is thick with sorrow. “Go, love.”

Buffy shakily gets to her feet and gets into the ambulance with Veronica, sitting small in the corner so the paramedics can keep working on Logan.

“Are you okay?” she finally asks Veronica.

The girl shudders beside her as if coming out of emergency response mode and puts her bloody hands to her face.

“He’s so still,” Veronica chokes out. “He’s never still.”

Buffy puts her arms around her and holds her till they reach the hospital.

It’s a jumble after that, but Buffy retains enough sense to call Giles and leaves a message for Xander and Anya, knowing they won’t get it until they get back even if that’s supposed to be today.

She doesn’t know how long she sits, waiting for news, and she’s going to call the house soon because Dawn will be coming back home and Spike will be there, but Willow’s out there somewhere and she should be doing something other than washing blood off her hands in a hospital sink.

“Buffy,” Giles says, sitting beside her.

“Giles,” she says and throws her arms around him.

It doesn’t matter that he left or why he did, because he’s there and she just needs him.

“Can you forgive me?” he asks, holding her back.

“For what?” she asks, wiping her eyes.

“I should never have left. I should never have abandoned you,” he admits.

“Yeah, but no,” she says. “Giles, you were right about everything. It is time I was an adult.”

“Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is...ask for help when you need it,” Giles says, smiling softly.

“Now you tell me,” she says wryly, shoving away feelings of grief and focusing. “I guess...I wasn't ready before. It took a long time for that feeling to go away...the feeling that I wasn't really here. It was like when I clawed my way out of that grave, I left something behind. Part of me. I just…”

She can’t finish but he hugs her again and it’s okay that she doesn’t.

“Buffy, Willow…” he says.

“Giles, she just snapped. I don’t know what-” Buffy stops talking.

“We must find her. Find her before it’s too late,” Giles says urgently.

“But Logan…” Buffy starts.

“Logan will not be helped by you sitting here. But you can still help Willow,” Giles says.

“Then we should go,” she says, standing up.

She tells Veronica who simply nods and turns away.

“I will be back,” Buffy promises her. “Can I get someone to come and be with you?”

“I called my family,” she says stiffly. “My dad, Mac, and Wallace are on their way.”

“I will be back,” Buffy says firmly.

Veronica finally looks at her and hugs her.

“Find her and keep her safe,” she whispers.

“I will,” Buffy tells her and returns to Giles.

“We need to get to the Magic Box,” Giles tells her.

“How are we going to find her? You don’t think she went there?” Buffy asks.

“I think she went there and then left again,” Giles says, looking apologetic, and somehow not at the same time, which she thinks is quite the feat. “I put what you might call a ‘magical lowjack’ on her.”

“Giles with the slang,” Buffy says. “This day is practically apocalyptic.”

“I sincerely hope not,” Giles says, looking grim. “But I can sense Willow and she’s on the move. But I need to check and see what she’s taken.”

“Taken?”

Buffy understands when they get to the Magic Box and the door’s blown out and all the seriously evil and squick-y books from the restricted area are spread out on the floor, drained of their words and, presumably, magic.

“This is worse than I feared,” Giles says. “Come on.”

“You wanna give me the skinny here?” Buffy says, getting into his rental car.

She’s feeling it now, the Slayer adrenaline, the satisfaction of having a goal, of knowing there’s something to do.

“Willow has embraced much dark magic and she’s after revenge,” Giles explains, pulling out.

“But this is Willow we’re talking about here,” Buffy says, despite Willow’s actions ever since Buffy was brought back.

“Barely,” Giles says grimly.

Buffy swallows hard at that and the last six years flashes through her brain and she still can’t accept the concept.

“So where is she?”

“She’s in the woods,” Giles says, shifting into a higher gear.

They reach the woods and then Buffy’s running, running and brushing past the wind, urgent in her need. She can hear screams.

She bursts into the clearing and Giles is running ragged behind her somewhere.

Warren’s tied to a tree, his eye wide and terrified, his mouth actually sewn shut. Willow is standing before him, hair black as the night around her.

“W-Willow, please, just stop,” she pleads. “I love you. And Tara. But we don't kill humans. It's not the way.”

Willow turns and the dead look in her black eyes makes Buffy's heart pound with terror.

“How can you say that? Tara is dead,” Willow says, like Buffy is the one doing something unbelievably wrong.

“I know, I know,” Buffy says. “And I...can't understand...anything. Not what happened...a-and not what you must be going through. Willow, if you do this, you let Warren destroy you, too.”

Giles comes into the clearing and Willow’s face gets even darker though Buffy wouldn’t say it was possible five seconds earlier.

“Willow, the magic's too strong, there's no coming back from it. From this act,” Giles says strongly.

“I'm not coming back.”

Willow raises her hands and Warren winces in pain. Buffy leaps forward and grabs her hand.

“Will, please. Please, we'll get through this together.”

“We won't! Not your way,” Willow says.

“Please, just-” Buffy tries again.

“No! No more talking. Bored now.”

Willow’s hand flings upward and Buffy stares in horror as Warren’s skin flays off his body, leaving only the meat and bone underneath. It’s one of the most horrific things she’s ever seen and she’s a vampire Slayer.

It’s done by her best friend. Her best friend. Sweet, loveable, quirky, nerdy Willow. Willow who’s now so powerful she pulled Buffy back from the dead and just killed someone.

“One down,” Willow says somewhere in the back of Buffy’s mind and then she vanishes, leaving Buffy’s world in pieces.

Again.

“I had hoped it wouldn’t-” Giles says from behind her and she turns to see him leaning against a tree for support.

“I…” she says.

“Yes,” Giles says.

“What now?” Buffy asks, needing something concrete.

“I have an idea, but I will need to convene with the coven,” says Giles, still getting his breath back.

“Then I’m going back to the hospital,” Buffy says, “and then getting Spike to go look for her. We have to stop her from hurting Andrew and Jonathan, too.”

“I will take the car,” Giles says. “You’ll go faster on your own.”

And she will, she does. She almost flies. She imagines that she runs faster than her problems, faster than her despair, faster than her memories.

When she gets back to the hospital Spike, Dawn, and Veronica are in the waiting room.

“Warren’s dead,” she gasps out, bent double.

Dawn gets her water and she gulps it down gratefully.

“Red?” Spike asks.

“Her work,” Buffy says and feels like throwing up. “How’s Logan?”

“The doctors are working,” Veronica says quietly, “but it’s extremely dangerous to operate so close to his heart to get the bullet out. I think…I think magic might be the only thing that can save him.”

“We’re fresh out of magic people,” Buffy says. “Tara-” she chokes out.

“She’s back there, too,” Spike says, jerking his head.

“That’s not the morgue,” Buffy says because she knows.

She knows.

“She’s not dead, Buffy,” Dawn says, putting her hand on her shoulder.

“Thought she was, too,” Spike says, “until I got close enough. Faint heartbeat. Called another ambulance and got her here. She’s real bad off, practically same situation as Scottie, but she could make it.”

It’s not possible, but Buffy will take any good news she can right now. For the first time in twenty-four hours, in six months, hope rises in her chest.

“Then we just tell Willow,” Buffy says. “She’ll save them.”

“Logan’s worse than Tara,” Veronica says tightly. “She won’t save him first.”

“Besides, Willow might be…” Spike says. “Just saying I’ve seen this before. Witch goes down the killing road, she might not come back.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Buffy says and it’s her grief saying it.

Spike’s jaw tightens and he doesn’t say anything.

“I- we have to find her,” she says instead of apologizing like she should. “Then we’ll deal with saving people. She said-she said she was going to kill Jonathan and Andrew. We have to protect them. Spike…will you help?”

He nods but doesn’t say anything.

“My family will be here soon,” Veronica says.

“I need your help,” Buffy says softly, looking at Veronica.

“I can’t leave Logan,” Veronica says tightly.

“I know. I know it’s horrible to ask. But if what you say is true, we need Willow to help him. Please,” Buffy says softly.

Veronica sighs and then nods as well.

“Dawn, can you please wait here for them to get here?” Veronica asks. “Watch over them for us?”

Buffy should’ve been the one to say it. She knows that just looking at Dawn’s face.

But she can’t change that now.

“Yes,” Dawn says.

“Thank you,” Buffy tells her. “Giles is working on something to help Willow and he might come here. Can you tell him what we’re doing?”

“Yes,” says Dawn, but she looks so upset that Buffy gives her a quick hug.

“I promise I’ll come get you,” she says.

Dawn nods and looks slightly better.

On the way to the jail Buffy tells them what happened in the woods.

“Not sorry the wanker’s dead,” Spike says. “Would’ve done it myself. You could’ve done it.”

“Being a Slayer doesn't give me a license to kill. Warren's human,” Buffy says sharply.

“So?” Spike says nonchalantly.

“So the human world has its own rules for dealing with people like him,” Buffy says sharply.

“Yeah, we all know how well those rules work,” Veronica says and Buffy thinks back to the last criminal Veronica put away who got off scot-free.

“Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't,” Buffy says firmly. “We can't control the universe. If we were supposed to...then we would change this whole mess. We’d bring people back. There are limits to what we can do. There should be. Willow doesn't want to believe that. And now she's messing with forces that want to hurt her. All of us.”

Spike looks strangely at her at that. But she’s feeling it. She’s feeling that fire inside of her that tells her what to do. She’s missed it so much. She feels more like Buffy. More like the Slayer. More like a person. More like she can love and live and connect and grow.

“Gotta tell you something, Slayer,” Spike says, sounding reluctant.

“Now is not the time,” Veronica interrupts him.

“Always the time for truth, ain’t that what you always say,” he tells her. “Besides, it’s never gonna come out right. Might as well pull the trigger, yeah?”

“If you must,” she says and sighs.

“Someone wanna fill me in here?” Buffy asks.

“Chip’s not working,” Spike says quickly.

“I know that,” Buffy replies.

“On people other than you,” he says.

She stops dead.

“What?” she asks, not sure she heard correctly.

“We don’t have time for this,” Veronica warns.

“Haven’t hurt anyone,” Spike tells her and she forces herself to look him in the eyes.

They’re sincere. As sincere as ever.

“But…” she starts and doesn’t know how to finish.

“But that means I got a choice to make,” Spike says. “So do you.”

“I-I…”

“We have to go!” Veronica urges. “Buffy, I will personally watch Spike like a hawk if it makes you feel better, but you know him. You know how much he loves you, loves us. If that doesn’t convince either of you, I don’t know what will. But right now we have to save Jonathan and Andrew, save Willow, save Logan, save Tara. In that order. And since the person I care most about is second to last, I suggest you get moving.”

Buffy shuts her mouth and starts running again.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she says grimly. “But Veronica’s right. At least now you can restrain Willow if need be.”

Spike shoots a startled look at her and doesn’t say anything. Neither does Buffy. She’s too busy running. She can’t think about anything else. She’s not going to lose ground this time, she won’t. She won’t.


	16. Veronica and the End of the World

Veronica’s out of breath and panting and it’s simply not fair that even though she’s young and vital and in the best shape of her life she has no way of beating the Slayer and vampire running ahead of her.

Of course she’ll take that over her boyfriend bleeding out in the hospital.

She feels guilty, she feels so guilty. Because it’s her fault he’s there at all. He moved to this town for her, he became involved in a supernatural war for her. He cautioned her against the dangerous life she’s chosen and now he’s paying the price for her folly.

The guilt slaps at her mind with every footfall to the ground, every ragged breath drawn, every wild beat of her racing heart.

But she can’t think of it now. Because magic may kill him, but she also knows that only magic can save him now. So she’s going to drag Willow back to the hospital if it’s the last thing she does. And it very well might be.

They reach the jail and head inside. Veronica distracts the guards while Buffy and Spike slip to the holding cells.

She’s reminded of countless other times she’s done this to get what she wanted but none of that matters now. This deputy isn’t Leo and there are lives on the line.

“You got a moral thing against stealing a cop car?” Spike asks Buffy, holding Andrew like a vise.

The nerd is writhing and attempting weak punches with every step and Spike winces only slightly. Jonathan, on the other hand, is standing meekly at Buffy’s side.

“Not tonight, I don’t,” she tells him.

Spike hotwires the car and they drive.

“Where are we going?” Veronica asks, because now it feels like they have no plan.

“Magic Box,” Buffy says and shoots her a quick glance. “I’m sure Willow will come there, but I don’t know how to protect them and maybe there’s some magic there that will help.”

Veronica isn’t exactly thrilled with the idea, but she goes along with it.

They get there and start digging through all the books and Veronica sort of wishes she had focused a bit more on the magic and less on the kick-assery bit of the supernatural.

“My shop!” comes a shriek from behind them and they turn to see Anya and Xander standing there, surveying the wreckage.

“We heard and went to the hospital,” Xander says.

“Uh, welcome home,” Buffy says, looking chagrined.

Veronica would be too if Anya were looking at her like that.

“Buff, what happened?” Xander asks.

Buffy explains the whole thing and she looks and talks as exhausted as Veronica feels, but she manages to get everything out in a mostly coherent manner and Xander and Anya simply fall in line with the rest of them in their shock, anger, grief, and worry.

Anya briskly pulls a book out from behind the counter and starts mumbling over it. 

When Jonathan offers his help, Xander shoots him down quickly, but Veronica and Buffy exchange glances and then Buffy sends him over to explain that it is, in fact, Babylonian, and not Sumerian she’s reading.

“Now we just have to get Willow-” Buffy says.

“Aww, it’s sweet that you missed me,” Willow says from the doorway.

She’s fairly crackling with energy now and Veronica wonders where she went to for the extra power. From the look on Spike’s face, she gathers he can guess. Actually remembering back to the last time she saw Willow like this, Veronica can guess that Rack is probably dead. Not that that bothers her very much.

“Willow,” Xander cries and goes toward her.

She sweeps out her arm and he flies back into the cash register.

“You lost your best friend rights when you married the demon,” Willow says.

Xander’s mouth gapes as he gasps for breath and Veronica can only guess how strange this must be for him. She knows they’ve known each other since they were small.

“Willow, stop!” Buffy cries. “Tara’s not dead.”

Willow stops cold and becomes like a statue.

“You’re lying,” she says. “I can’t feel her light.”

“She’s at the hospital and the doctors are working on her,” Veronica says. “She and Logan are both dying and they need your help.”

“Sorry, your boyfriend is at the back of the line but as soon as I assist other callers I might get to him,” Willow says and throws her hands up.

Veronica looks in horror but the nerds remain untouched. Then she notices Anya’s not there anymore.

Buffy steps forward again, holding out an entreating hand.

“Willow, I know what you want to do, but you have to listen to me. The forces inside you are incredibly powerful. They're strong but you're stronger. You have to remember you're still Willow.” 

Willow advances forward threateningly.

“Let me tell you something about Willow. She's a loser. And she always has been. People picked on Willow in junior high school, high school, up until college. With her stupid mousy ways.” 

“I know this hurts. Bad,” said Buffy. “But, Willow, if you let loose with the magics, it will never end.”

“Promise?” Willow smiles nastily.

“You don't want that,” Buffy tries again. 

“Why not?” Willow asks.  
“Because you lose everything. Your friends, yourself.... Willow, if you let this control you then the world goes away. And all of us with it. There's so much to live for.”

“Oh, please! This is your pitch? Buffy, you hate it here as much as I do. I'm just more honest about it.” 

“That's not true,” Buffy says and Veronica thinks she actually means it. 

“You're trying to sell me on the world?” Willow says scornfully. “The one where you lie to your friends when you're not trying to kill them? And you screw a vampire just to feel? And insane asylums are the comfy alternative? This world? Buffy, it's me. I know you were happier when you were in the ground. The only time you were ever at peace in your whole life is when you were dead. Until Willow brought you back.”

“Tara is still alive,” Xander finally says, stepping up and Willow glares at him as if resisting only one of her best friends at a time is the allowed limit. “You’ll hurt her if you do this.”

“Bored now,” Willow says and throws her hands up again. Nothing happens again. “Damn, that is one effective counter-spell. But that’s okay, cause I don’t need magic to beat you. Just beating you will work fine.”

She points her fingers at herself and lightening appears to strike her.

She smashes her fist across the counter and it crumples revealing Anya crouching behind it.

“Ah, the little ex-demon,” Willow crows, beckoning, and the book flies out of Anya’s hands.

The bubble surrounding Andrew and Jonathan vanishes and they look panicked. They grab some swords off the wall but Veronica wonders exactly what they’re going to do with them.

“Get them out of here,” Buffy cries and Xander and Anya hustle the nerds along.

Veronica’s about to go with them, but she lingers.

She watches as Buffy and Spike both advance on Willow.

There’s nothing good about it, but it’s fascinating to watch. Veronica has always loved watching Buffy and Spike fight. They’re fluid and fast, working well together, but Willow’s raw power and rage and that works, too.

She’s throwing them around like rag dolls and Veronica doesn’t know how much longer she can do nothing.

She’s starting to panic cause she knows Willow’s her only chance to save Logan, but Willow’s also about to kill her other friends. She literally has no idea what to do.

She hears a noise and turns around, startled.

“You know, I get it now, Buffy,” Willow says, standing with her foot on Spike’s back, trapping him, while Buffy lies slumped in front of her, bruised and bleeding. “Being a Slayer’s about power.” A fireball lights up from her fingers and she stares at it. “And there's no one in the world with the power to stop me now.” 

A blast of energy flies from the doorway and hits Willow, throwing her to the ground.

“I'd like to test that theory,” Giles says, brushing past Veronica. “Vincire!” More light flies at Willow and she flies back. “Go, Veronica!”

Veronica turns and runs, flying after where Xander and Anya disappeared.

She catches up with them just in time to see Jonathan put his sword against Andrew’s neck and Andrew lower his from Xander’s.

“We have to keep moving,” she yells.

“This way,” Xander yells, turning them towards the cemeteries.

There’s a loud whistling sound from overheard and Veronica hears shouting. Spike is running toward them yelling and waving his hands.

She looks up and there’s a huge meteorite whipping overhead, hurtling toward them. She dives to the left, pulling Jonathan along with her.

There’s an explosion and heat and dirt all around her. She coughs and heaves her body upwards, feeling it ache absolutely everywhere.

Jonathan starts moving directly to her right and she puts out her hand in caution lest he roll into the huge crater suddenly opened up before them.

“Oh, man,” he groans, scrambling back. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen. This is too much.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you bowed down to that misogynistic bastard,” Veronica snaps and stands up. “Spike!” she yells.

“Down here, pet,” Spike yells back from somewhere below. “Got me and the Quivering Wonder down here.”

“We’re over here, thanks for asking,” Xander says, helping Anya to her feet to Veronica’s left.

There’s more yelling and Veronica turns again to see Buffy advancing on them.

“What’s going on?” Veronica asks. 

“Proserpexa?” says Buffy, like it's a question. She wipes blood from her nose.

“Who's she?” Veronica asks.

“Uh, way up there in the hierarchy of she-demons,” Anya says, walking toward them, favoring her right arm. “Her followers intended to use her effigy to destroy the world. They all died when the temple got swallowed up in the big earthquake of ‘32.”

“So now seventy years later, Willow's going to make their dreams come true,” Buffy says. “She's going to drain the planet's life force, and funnel its energy through Proserpexa's effigy and-and burn the Earth to a cinder. But Giles said no magic or supernatural force can stop her. She took his power and decided to end the world’s suffering.”

“What does that mean?” Xander asks, “no magic or force can stop her?”

“Don't know. He-he said, ‘the Slayer can't stop her,’ and then he said a bunch of other stuff. He really wasn't too clear,” Buffy says anxiously.

“You have to try,” Xander says wildly. “We have to try.”

“I know,” Buffy says, looking determined.

“So…now what?” Veronica asks.

“A little help?” Spike yells from down in the pit.

“Anya, Giles is really weak and…and not good,” Buffy says. “Can you please go help him? Get him to the hospital if he’ll let you.”

Anya nods determinedly.

“I will. I have some last minute things I need to ask him about the shop anyway.”

Xander laughs a little and pulls her close to him, kissing her quickly and hard. 

“Be careful, Ahn,” he says.

“I think you should be more careful than me,” she tells him, tears in her voice. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he tells her.

She runs off into the distance and Buffy looks around, Veronica guesses she’s looking for something to help them out of the pit with.

“Oh, no you don’t,” comes the creepy, disembodied voice of Willow floating through the trees. “Can’t have you messing anything up now. Only fitting you should all go out fighting.”

There’s an earthquake and a rumble and Buffy pitches headfirst into the crater, Veronica grasping for her too late. Jonathan’s sword tumbles down with her.

Veronica turns to look for Xander, but he’s gone. She can only guess where.

“You gonna help me or run?” Veronica asks Jonathan.

He hesitates for a second.

“I’ll help.”

“Good, then get something to help them out of that hole,” Veronica instructs him.

There’s the sound of clashing swords and Veronica peers over the edge and blinks in surprise at the sight of Buffy and Spike, back to back, fighting with swords against skeletal creatures attacking them, pulled, presumably, from the graves all around.

“You gonna be okay?” she asks them.

Spike throws back his head and laughs, obviously enjoying himself.

Buffy smiles grimly in the dim light, but Veronica thinks she just might like this situation, too.

“Don’t worry about us,” Buffy says. “Get to Willow.”

“And do what exactly?” Veronica mutters but she knows that somebody has to try something and Willow is Logan’s only option. “Jonathan might or might not help you,” Veronica says.

“Don’t leave me. I’m sorry I called you names,” Andrew wails from down in the pit.

Veronica doesn’t stay to hear more. She runs instead.

She runs toward the bluff that she’s only heard tale of, which Logan once tried to get her to visit with him.

Her legs pump and her heart feels like it might give out, but she keeps going, memories and feelings running across her mind’s eye. She thinks of Tara, comforting her while she was in Buffy’s body, baking her pancakes, making dry remarks when nobody expected it. She thinks about Lilly, dancing at the carwash on the day of her death, poking fun of Veronica’s clothes, sauntering through the halls of Neptune High like she owned them.

There are too many people in the world already gone through whatever means. Lilly and Duncan and Meg and her mom and Buffy’s mom and Logan’s mom and why won’t all the mothers quit leaving?

She thinks of her dad and Wallace and Mac, sitting with Dawn in the hospital. Belatedly she wishes she’d thought to call Weevil, just to say…something. She thinks of Buffy and Spike fighting in the pit and whether they’ll ever be able to accept each other for who they are.

Mostly she thinks of Logan and she swears that if she ever speaks with him again she won’t fight with him anymore. She won’t treat him like he’s second class or second guess him or worry about where their relationship is going.

She knows all she’s doing is making promises in the heat of the moment, lost in the grief of the unknown, but all she wants is for him to live so she can break every single one of those promises to his face.

The sky lightens as she runs and she pushes herself further and faster. The world is shaking now, vibrations of some unknown power. She can guess what it is.

The sun bursts on her face as she clears the woods and heads up the bluff and there…there’s Willow and Xander.

She’s sobbing on the grass and he’s holding her and her hair’s red again and Veronica feels hope for the first time since she watched Logan being loaded into the ambulance.

She approaches them and hugs them on the ground. They might not be best friends and she’s not Buffy, but she does love them and wants them to be happy and she wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Willow sobs.

Veronica hates to do it, but she needs Willow now.

“Willow,” she says quietly, “Willow, you can still save Tara. And Logan.”

“She’s really alive?” Willow asks. “I can’t-I can’t.”

“She was when we left the hospital. We have to hurry,” Veronica says urgently.

Willow wipes her eyes and stands up.

“The power, it’s fading. We have to hurry. Hold my hands.”

They do and there’s a faint melting of the background and reforming of the hospital walls.

Dawn’s standing there with eyes open wide and there’s skeletons lying at her feet.

“You!” she shouts, brandishing a long cane that seems to have been snatched from a senior citizen.

“She’s here to help,” Veronica assures her. “Are we too late?”

“The doctors say Logan has minutes,” Dawn replies. “That was minutes ago. Tara’s almost stable.”

“Please…” Veronica says, looking at Willow with everything she’s ever felt in her eyes.

“Where is he?” Willow says after only a second of hesitation.

They walk quickly down the corridor and Veronica’s heart feels like it’s about to stop when she sees him.

He starts to code, the machines wailing.

“Hold them back,” Willow says, raising her arms. “I’m going to get the bullet out.”

The hospital starts to shake and the lights flicker while Veronica closes the door and she and Xander hold it against the doctors and nurses trying to get in.

Logan shakes, too and starts to rise like he’s being pulled by invisible strings and Willow holds out her hand. Her eyes are black, but her hair stays red.

Then there’s a flash of light and Logan falls back on the bed. The machines stay bleeping madly for a minute and then fall quiet. His heartbeat becomes steady.

“Open the door,” Willow says and then addresses the doctors. “I got the bullet out, but you need to make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”

Veronica wonders if that’s something Willow knows or if she’s watched too many hospital dramas. Either way, she stands in the corner of the room and watches the doctors work until they make her leave and then she watches from behind the glass.

There’s a soft presence up from behind her and she turns to see Dawn.

“Tara’s gonna be okay, Willow didn’t even need to do anything,” Dawn says, putting her forehead on the glass. “How is he?”

The doctors turn and give her a thumbs-up and Veronica sags against the glass in relief.

“Okay, okay,” she mumbles and slides to the ground, resting her head back against the glass.

“Are you okay?” Dawn asks.

“Might have run…too much,” Veronica admits.

She doesn’t know if she can ever move again, but she has to.

She holds up her hand and Dawn helps her stagger to her feet and after giving Dawn a quick hug, she sits by Logan’s side and for the moment she can reconcile everything. She has so many worlds that she lives in. She has the world of the detective and the world of the supernatural and for now they rest at peace with each other. There's still a little room for improvement in all her worlds, like the world of the independent woman and the world of the woman in love, but she's okay with that right now.

She sinks her head onto his bed, holding his hand, and lets herself rest.


	17. Epilogue in 4 Parts

_Logan_

He blinks wearily, wondering why his eyes are having trouble focusing and why his chest feels like PCHers were pounding on it.

“His eyes are moving,” he hears someone say.

“Logan?” comes Veronica’s voice.

“Ve-” he starts to say and then coughs.

“Take it easy,” she says and he feels pressure on his hands like she’s gripping them. “You’re gonna need to take it easy for a while.”

“What happened?” he asks, finally opening his eyes all the way.

She swims into focus before him and her eyes are red-rimmed and she looks like she’s barely slept and there are twigs in her hair, but she looks beautiful.

“You want the short version or the long version?” she asks, grinning at him.

It takes a while because he keeps falling asleep on her but he finally hears the full version of what happened and how Willow eventually saved his life, which is a bit awkward and he’ll have to think more on that later.

Later on he opens his eyes and finds practically everyone standing around his room.

“It’s your turn,” Buffy tells him with a wan smile. “Willow’s still with Tara though. She refuses to leave until Tara wakes up. She didn’t get the huge magic dose you did. Otherwise the doctors say you wouldn’t have woken up for maybe a week.”

“So magic saved me and best friendship saved the world?” Logan asks.

“Well, it was slightly more magical than that,” Giles says, taking off his glasses. Logan wonders how many times a day he does that. “It, uh...the magic she took from me, it-it did what I hoped it would do.”

“Oh. You dosed her,” Logan says. “You knew she was going to take your powers all along.”

“The gift I was given by the coven was the true essence of magic. Willow's magic came from a...place of rage and power.”

“And vengeance. Don't forget vengeance,” Anya pipes up from where she’s practically wrapped around Xander’s middle.

“Oh, how could I?” Giles says wryly. “In any case, the magic she took from me tapped into...the spark of humanity she had left. Helped her to feel again. Gave Xander the opportunity to...reach her. It was he who got to her in time. He saved us all.”   
“I’ll only require you all to mention it every year on my birthday and Christmas,” Xander says, buffing his nails on his shirt.

Logan could be wrong, but he swears there’s a new humility in Xander’s face that he hasn’t seen before.

“What’s going to happen to her now?” Dawn asks and Logan guesses that all the finer details haven’t really been worked out yet.

“She is not all well,” Giles says sadly. “To have taken a life…”

“She’s still Willow!” Xander says sharply.

“We know, Xan,” Buffy tells him softly. “But she’s not the same Willow.”

“I will be taking her to England with me,” Giles says, looking at Buffy. “She requires close guidance by the coven there. I-I would return but I feel my presence…someone she knows…might be…best.”

“We get it, Giles,” Buffy assures him with a smile.

On second look, Buffy looks better than Logan’s seen her since…they met. 

“I will bring her back and we’ll be…back,” Giles says.

Buffy nods in agreement and Giles sighs as if he relieved.

“And the nerds?” Logan asks.

“In jail. I’m personally going to testify on behalf of Jonathan though,” Buffy says.

Logan closes his eyes because it’s too hard to hold them open anymore.

“We should let him rest,” Veronica says, kissing his forehead.

He hears them all troop out from somewhere far away and then he’s back to the oblivion.

When he wakes up again it’s dark and Veronica’s sitting beside him, huge textbooks in her lap. She’s clean and bright again.

“Don’t-” he tries to say and then clears his throat “-don’t you get saving the world exemption status from final exams?”

“You’d think in Sunnydale,” she tells him, slamming the book shut and leaning over him. “You okay?”

“Bullet wound aside? Fine,” he says.

“You were a little bit brave there. Should I be worried?” she asks in a teasing tone.

“I think that you have the right idea about the supernatural,” Logan says slowly. “Getting shot is so fun I think I want to save the world every week.”

“I don’t,” Veronica says, shuddering. “I’ve been so focused on the good stuff I never saw the bad coming until it hit the floor with a bullet-shaped hole in my boyfriend.”

“Told you so,” he says raggedly and tries to smirk. 

It probably looks really weak because she smirks for him at him.

“You’re such a jackass,” she says.

“But you…love me,” he says and then slips away into the dark again.

“I do,” she says somewhere above him.

_Spike_

Spike likes fighting as a general rule. Always has. Rather fight a mob than pluck a meal for himself any day. That hasn’t changed in over a hundred years.

He likes that he's spending the end of the world fighting reanimated skeletons in a pit and that he spends it fighting with the Slayer.

Even the presence of Andrew doesn’t change the feeling of joy when the last skeleton drops and Buffy turns to him with peace on her face and they kiss until a huge rope hits the top of his head, lowered by the ever helpful Jonathan.

When they get to the hospital and find out everyone’s going to be okay and that Xander has bragging rights for the rest of his life, Spike remembers himself.

Everything that’s happened sinks back into his mind and body and all he think of is what the hell he’s going to do now. He’s been in something of a cage for a couple of years now, an evolving cage of electricity, nature, and love. He knows which one he likes best.

But he has to figure out which one he can’t live without. If he were anyone but him the choice would probably be obvious. But he struggles while he sits in the waiting room, the Bit curled up in his arms, or when Xander’s busy ragging on him about what happened on the bluff, or when they’re trooping from room to bloody room and he has to look at an extremely pale Tara lying comatose.

Logan’s waking up and half conscious most of the time. That bit’s good. This whole time period, caring about humans, wanting them to be well, figuring out what’s going to change for the world, is existentially hard for Spike.

Well, maybe it decides for him. In the end, he can’t really choose anything else because of who he is, regardless of what he is. He’s Spike and Spike’s a fool for love, always has been.

Doesn’t mean that love will be accepted, but he’ll either be accepted or he’ll do something else for the others he loves. He’s pretty sure the chip is utterly kaput now, but he hopes he can convince Buffy to help him figure that out for sure cause he wants to know.

Tara does wake up and nobody really knows what happens between her and Willow at the time, but Willow leaves the room with tears on her face and a strength in her shoulders that hadn’t been there before. Giles makes arrangements for them to leave and they all go to the airport to see them off.

Willow hugs mostly everyone and she’s still having trouble looking people in the eye but it’s Anya who grasps her by the shoulders.

“Welcome to the club. Don’t worry, we don’t judge and there are cookies.”

Willow smiles slightly and hugs the other woman. Spike has to raise his eyebrow at that, but he’s right proud of Anya taking the high road when all Willow’s ever done is rag on her.

Giles hugs Buffy warmly and gives Spike what Spike would almost call an approving nod.

“Come back soon, Dad,” he says teasingly and then avoids looking at Buffy. 

He’s still waiting for her to come to him. She’s been busy. Really busy.

He goes to the hospital later and sits in Tara’s room for a while. He’s bored and his legs are shaking so hard he thinks the chair might break, but he needs to know.

When she wakes up again he tells her everything she’s missed.

When he finishes she reaches out her hand and puts it on his bowed head.

“Did you need my benediction, Spike?” Tara asks quietly.

“What? No, nothing like that…just thought you would like to know,” he mumbles.

She smiles too knowingly at him.

“I knew it had to come. With it not working on Buffy. And with you…you as you.”

“The morphine treating you well, luv?” he asks.

She grins at him.

“You’ll be okay, Spike. Whatever happens. You’ll be okay.”

“And you? Will you be okay, Glinda?” Spike looks sharply at her.

She closes her eyes for a moment and he can tell it’s not the hole in her chest that’s bothering her. Not the visible one.

“I thought…when I came to Sunnydale,” Tara says slowly, “I was being strong and escaping. W-Willow was going to be my savior. B-but it doesn’t work like that. And w-what she did…it can’t go away. I can’t let it. I have to actually be strong now. I hope she…she’ll be wonderful. But not with me.”

“Proud of you, Tara,” he says. “You’re the strongest bird I know apart from one. Don’t tell Veronica or the Bit I said so.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she says, smiling wryly.

When she falls back to sleep he sits there for a while and then goes back to the house. Dawn’s upstairs on her bed and he slips into the room to check on her. Before he can leave again she wakes up and asks him if everything’s okay.

“All’s right, Bit,” he assures her.

“Sorry I can’t be a kleptomaniac like you,” she says sleepily.

He chuckles.

“Sleep well, Nibblet. Think my stealing days will be nipped in the bud, too.”

“I always thought…you were perfect tog…” she says and drops off again.

He covers her with a blanket, knowing how hard the days have been on her. He can only hope one more change won’t completely unbalance her again if it comes to that.

Unbalance them all if it comes to that.

_Veronica_

Veronica’s sick to death of taking tests. She feels like the entire last year has been one big test and she doesn’t even know if she passed and now she’s stuck in a classroom taking one pointless exam after another.

Maybe they’re not pointless but she feels that way anyway.

These tests she knows she'll pass at least.

When she gets back to the dorm room Mac’s still there. Her dad and Wallace had left the night before, but Mac is sleeping in Tara’s old bed for a few more weeks, her exams already over by the time Veronica had called her.

“Everything okay?” Mac asks.

“Ask me again in another few weeks.” Veronica pauses and flops down on her bed. She pauses before asking. “Do you really like it? The magic? Being a technopage?”

“Duh or I wouldn’t do it,” Mac says, tossing a pillow at her. “What does that even mean?”

“I just…all this magic. It’s everywhere here,” Veronica tries to explain. “How can so much of the world be ignorant of it? How did I live a perfectly normal espionage life before it?”

“Espionage?” Mac laughs at her.

“It’s a good, if not completely accurate, word,” Veronica protests. “I just mean that I’ve put everything in my old life on hold this year. Simply for this magic stuff and the people involved in it. And it could have cost-”

“Logan’s fine,” Mac says softly. “Bullets are practically standard issue in your line of work and he’s been on the receiving end before.”

“But he kept warning me and I was just too busy…too sure of myself…too worried about his motives,” Veronica replies.

“Gonna happen no matter how vanilla your life is,” Mac tells her.

“I know. It was just a bit…startling.” Veronica nods. 

“There’s an understatement,” Mac says.

Veronica laughs this time.

“Any chance you want to transfer to Sunnydale next year?”

“None,” Mac says calmly. “Who knows what life will do. But I’m always on the other end of a spell-enhanced Internet connection.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Veronica says.

The next time she goes to the hospital it’s the day before Logan’s release. Tara’s gonna be there for a few more days and then she’s moving back into Buffy’s to get back on her feet again before catching up on her exams that she missed. Veronica’s not really sure of where to after that, but she’s not worried. Tara will do just fine.

Logan’s apparently planning on bribing most of his professors and she’s assured him that is not the way to go about getting a higher education.

She runs into Spike outside Logan’s door.

“Going in?” she gestures.

“Naw, Scottie’s got a visitor,” Spike says.

Veronica looks inside and sees Buffy sitting there, chatting away.

“She seems…alive,” Veronica observes.

“Think she might be,” Spike says and can’t hide the love and pride on his face.

“What does that mean for you?” Veronica asks.

“Same thing it always means,” he says, suddenly moody.

“You’re so ridiculous, you know that?” she tells him, exasperated.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

“It means you’re a male and a vampire and someone I know who won’t be snacking on humans anytime soon,” she tells him bluntly.

“You get me that research? You can have more time…”

“No, I got it done. I have a folder in my room. Everything you could ever want to know about the Initiative and their scientists and that little chip in your head. Should give you a direction,” she says.

“Private Eye, you are the best in the biz.”

“I know,” she says, smiling.

They don’t exactly hug, but it’s pretty much like a hug and it means the same thing.

When Buffy comes back out Veronica slips inside. She can hear Buffy asking Spike to come over to dinner that night and she smiles to herself.

“I’m about ready to attempt the Great Escape,” Logan tells her, looking very antsy indeed.

“One more night, little man,” she says, climbing up on the bed and sitting cross-legged at the end.

“That’s too far away,” he says, pouting.

“I’ll come closer. Soon,” she promises.

“Tease,” he says.

“Jerk,” she replies.

“Has it really come down to this, Mars?” he asks dramatically.

“Probably always will with us,” she replies calmly. “But that’s okay, Echolls, cause one day you won’t be able to call me Mars anymore and I’ll have the upper hand.”

“You mean…” His eyes squint at her as he processes her words.

“Not now, not tomorrow, but it’s gonna happen,” she says casually, as if this was not a huge thing for her to say. “I want my share of that money you keep flinging at other girls.”

“Always knew you were a gold digger deep down,” he says, smiling, and there’s no trace of malice or insecurity in his face.

“That’s me,” she says with a straight face. “I wait outside all the 09er men’s houses; just hoping one of them will make me another Kendall.”

“Don’t knock it,” Logan says. “The woman does seriously all right for herself.”

“With stepsons five years younger than her?” Veronica says skeptically.

“The best kind of stepmom,” Logan says, eyes glazing over a little.

“Hey,” she says, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “That acceptance of the future is gonna go right out the window if you keep that up.”

“Oh, you don’t get out that easy,” he says, holding out his arms. “Take pity and crawl on down here? I can’t move.”

She shakes her head, but she scoots forward and lays her head on the uninjured side of his chest.

“You’re insatiable,” she says fondly.

“That’s my little bobcat. Ferocious to the last,” he says happily.

"I am…my father's daughter, you remember," she says, wondering if he'll catch her drift.

She shouldn't have worried.

"Never doubted it for a second," he says immediately. "No worries here, Mars, I wouldn't want my name either."

"But I do want you. You scared me to death,” she says, whispering into his chest.

“I scared me almost to death,” he says, kissing her hair. “I think maybe magic might be cooler than I thought though.”

“Cause it saved your life?” she asks.

“In some ways. Mostly because it’s a part of us now. I don’t think we can do without it. We’re hooked on Sunnydale,” he says, chuckling.

“Oh please,” Veronica says, rolling her eyes.

“Would you rather be hooked on phonics cause I can have it down here in fifteen minutes,” he says smugly.

She would hit him if he weren’t injured.

“I love you,” she tells him. “And no matter where I go or what I do or what ends up happening to us, normal or supernatural, I make you my number one priority and that doesn’t scare me anymore.”

She looks up at him and he’s not smiling, but he’s got that misty look in his eyes and she makes a mental note to tease him about it in twenty years, because, hell yeah, they’ll still be together then.

He angles his head down and kisses her and she relaxes into the familiarity and the comfort. It’s not that heated and she doesn’t think it needs to be. It’s just like it should be, the duality of love and lives intertwined, choices made and roads taken, and she listens to his heartbeat steadily thumping, beating out blood and life to his body, and, by extension, hers; his arm around her, their fingers threaded together and she’s totally okay with this.

His breath rises and falls beneath her and she latches on to that fact, onto life, and their life. Yes, this is just fine.

_Buffy_

Buffy’s making pancakes. They’re not the funny shaped ones like Tara makes, nor do they taste as good as the ones her mom used to make and it’s not a gourmet dinner, but she’s doing it with Dawn and that’s the whole point. She’s doing everything with Dawn that she can because she almost lost her and not really to the end of the world or the skeletons that Willow sent to the hospital to immediately ease the suffering of the people there, but to Buffy’s own apathy.

Not really her fault, she knows, but she’s going to make up for it if it’s the last thing she does. And she doesn’t want it to be the last thing. Not anymore.

It’s not perfect. Dawn’s gonna take more than some pancakes before she forgives her and feels safe again. But they spend the morning taking back stolen merchandise and signing Dawn up for community service and reassuring Social Services and it is almost like bonding time.

Buffy figures she won’t ground her too long because Dawn may have stolen some stuff but Buffy did try to kill her a few weeks ago.

“You’re almost bouncing,” Dawn tells her, sarcasm in her voice.

“I like pancakes,” Buffy defends.

“I'm gonna be okay with everything. Really. You don’t have to do the guilt thing,” Dawn says.

“This isn't guilt. I want us to spend time,” Buffy says earnestly.

“Okay. Good. I love spending time-”

“But I'm cramping your teenage style,” Buffy interrupts in horror.

“No-"

“Yes, I am. I'm the embarrassing mom who tries too hard. When did this happen?” Buffy asks, feeling panicked.

“No, you're not, it's not that, it's just...what if, instead of you hanging out with me? Maybe I could hang out with you.” Buffy just stares. “Why don't I come patrolling with you tonight?” Dawn suggests hopefully.

“Oh, and then? Maybe we can invite over some strangers and ask them to feed you candy?” Buffy says.

“Well, you guys went out patrolling every night when you were my age,” Dawn says, clearly prepared to go through her arsenal of reasons.

“True...but technically, you're one-and-a-half.” Dawn gives her the teenage glare of death and Buffy sighs. “See, I thought a little levity might...but okay, also no.”

“I just...I just think I could help,” Dawn says.

“I'm sure you could. But it's a little more dangerous than what I had in mind. Dawn, I work very hard to keep you away from that stuff. Okay? I don't want you around dangerous things that can kill you,” Buffy says.

“Which would be a perfectly reasonable argument, if my sister was chosen to protect the world from tax audits. But, see, my sister is you, and...dangerous things that want to kill me seem to find me,” Dawn reasons.

The girl has a point. Buffy hates it when that happens. She’s got enough to atone for without Dawn being right about something, too.

Maybe that’s what it comes down to. Life, this thing everyone leads, whether they want to or not. The only thing they have is the people around them and the ability to fight what’s coming.

It’s hard. Life is so hard. No one knows it more than her and she barely knows what she wants. She’s been wallowing in something dark and dreary for months and months now and she’s been climbing out of it as best she can. Each step and pull upward is a Herculean effort and she’s not out of the woods yet.

She’s going to be working hard for the rest of her life and she can’t do it on her own anymore. Doing it on your own leads to pain and misery and trying to end the world on a bluff with a serpent woman statue.

Buffy’s stronger than that. Maybe not by herself, but she’s going to lead by example.

“I see. I see it,” Buffy says.

“See what?” asks Dawn.

“You.” Dawn looks at her strangely and Buffy wonders how long she’s been lost in her own head, but she continues. “Things have really sucked lately, but it's all gonna change. And I wanna be there when it does.” The tears start to come then, but they’re good tears. “I want to see my friends happy again. And I want to see you grow up. The woman you're gonna become. Because she's gonna be beautiful.” Dawn starts to cry now. “And she's going to be powerful. I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you. There's so much that I want to show you.”

She goes to hug Dawn and she holds her there for a while. Looking across the kitchen, through the film of her tears, she sees a picture of her mom and she blinks rapidly at the sudden flow of love she feels.

“Thank you,” Dawn says, muffled against her shoulder.

“We’re gonna do so much, Dawnie. You, and me, and…Spike.”

“Really?” Dawn asks, pulling back with a smile.

“Really,” Buffy promises. “That doesn’t mean you need to go looking for the dangerous things. I’m not training you up to be the next Slayer.”

“You just can’t hold onto a moment, can you?” Dawn asks, but the tone is affectionate and Buffy holds onto her.

“Dinner’s burning, love,” Spike says, stepping into the room.

Buffy turns around and turns off the stove, moving the pan before it can catch fire.

“Um…” she says sheepishly, “anyone for pizza?”

It’s a good dinner. It’s a dinner for family and maybe not the most conventional, but it’s enough.

Dawn chatters through her anchovy pizza and Buffy shudders at the thought of it anywhere near her mouth.

“…And Anya said that I could work it off and maybe work my way up to be her assistant, but I’m gonna do a lot more than work at the Magic Box…”

Dawn’s words are happy filler in the back of Buffy’s mind as she sits across from her and hears all about Xander and Anya’s honeymoon and Willow’s first transatlantic phone call and she feels more content. Her friends will be okay. Tara will be there in a few days and Buffy will look after her for a change. Logan’s going home to Veronica tomorrow and they’ll be together.

Now if she can only get this vampire next to her to stop looking at her like she’s going to slug him.

They sit on the back porch after Dawn goes up to study for her exams.

It’s not quite like the comfortable silence they used to have before she died, but it’s something like. The tense subject does hang in the air between them, but she’s not afraid of it anymore.

“You going to get the chip out?” she asks him softly.

He shoots her a startled look.

“That something you might…allow?” he asks hesitantly.

“Let’s get something straight,” she says. “You’re your own man whether you love me or not, whether you have a chip in your head or not. You can be a better man than your past and I believe in you. In your ability to choose what’s right. You won’t be perfect and I’ll help you all I can, but I can’t be your only conscience. I’ve got enough to deal with being my own. I appreciate you wanting my input and my opinion, but not my permission, got it?”

He just looks at her and then laughs.

“You’re something else, Slayer,” he says, still laughing.

“I know,” she says. “Now have we got a deal?”

“You have my word I won’t hurt anyone,” he says. “And yeah.”

“Good,” she says, standing up and holding out her hand. “Now…we gonna slay some vampires or what?”

He grins and vamps out, running beside her and it feels like seconds and they’re in the cemetery and there’s a fledgling struggling out of the grave and he’s dust before he’s out.

Spike’s her perfect match in every way, light where she’s dark and dark where she’s light. He’s strong when she’s fleet and fleet when she’s strong and he knows every move before she makes it.

He irritates the hell out of her and he tastes too much like ashes on occasion and he makes really stupid decisions and he’s annoyingly better than her at handling Dawn, but he’s hers. So much hers, and she wants to be his.

So they do what they do best and rid the world of evil and then she takes him back to her house and she doesn’t intend on letting him go back to the crypt ever again if she can help it.

It finally makes sense to her and maybe she needed months of feeling lost and alone and worthless and dark and wrong before she could realize what she knows now. She doesn’t think the pre-death Buffy could accept such a fate, such a gift, such a road, but she certainly can now, and does.

She arches up underneath him and places her hands on his chest, gripping one shoulder as he moves above her, unmaking her and marking her and letting her be all at the same time. His lips are on her neck and there’s no fear even when his teeth scrape across her skin. She simply grips harder, moans louder, feels brighter.

He explodes in front of her while the lights dance behind her eyes and she feels all of her muscles pulled taught for one glorious moment and then she’s watching him fall down and slump towards her and maybe he doesn’t hear her except he always hears her when she speaks.

“I love you, Spike.” He doesn’t move so she tries again. “Spike, I love you. I mean it. I really-"

He looks up at her and his eyes are golden but his forehead is smooth and she’s confused but she doesn’t care and she simply reaches up to kiss him. 

“Say it again?” he murmurs against her lips.

“I’ll be saying it forever,” she promises him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her hands in his hair and gasps while his fingers trace circles across her stomach. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, Buffy,” he huffs out, groaning when she blows in his ear and retaliates by tracing his tongue down her neck to that one spot under her ear. “Love you so bloody much.”

She doesn’t really know the difference anymore between what she thought was love before and what she knows to be love. It doesn’t matter because she knows now, she’s so sure. It’s in her gut, her soul, her mind, her words, her actions, her life. She loves and she lives. She’s Buffy, she’s the Slayer, she’s got a destiny, and she’s got a normal life. It’s all one and the same.

She’s the lucky one. She’s got it all. She breathes fully for the first time. She breathes in the scent of him. She simply breathes.


End file.
